Complete Immersion
by With Death Comes More Death
Summary: As a result of the Zero Requiem, Lelouch has been killed and sent to another world by the Collective Unconscious. There, he finds two worlds that are completely different from his own. One being present in what he knows to be reality and the other being present in a video game called: Sword Art Online, and funnily enough, he just so happens to own a copy.
1. Chapter 0: Complete Immersion

Ello people, and welcome to the first chapter of whatever I'm calling this crossover. Well if any you guys seen my profile, I put something of this description under 'in progress'. Well here it is!

So if you've seen any of my previous stories, I've done a lot of Code Geass FanFics, but this is my first time doing anything related to Sword Art Online, so if I get any elements wrong I apologize, point them out and I will fix them. You have my word on that.

There is going to be a good amount of filler from real life to SAO so bear with me until we get to Lelouch killing things with a sword.

I really have no clue why I'm even making this story, just felt like something I needed to do because well my mind wouldn't let me think of other things. So follow/favorite if you'd like and enjoy.

**-Disclaimer-**

I don't own either Code Geass or Sword Art Online.

**Chapter 0: Complete Immersion**

Lelouch grimaced as the huge blade in his chest was pulled out of him, the pain coming in a sharp sting. He staggered forward, his attacker moving out of his way, flinging his blood of his blade. Soon there was no more room for him to move forward and he fell onto the ramp in front of him.

He slid on his bleeding chest and tumbled onto my back, sliding onto the end of the ramp with a thud. The world around him had started fading away from his senses, replacing them with the memories of his life. They flashed by one after the other, every good memory and every bad one, each having their own significance to him.

"L-lelouch, are you?" he heard his little sister voice like it was nothing but a whisper in the darkness. "Yes...I," he began weakly, "I destroyed the world and created... anew."

With those words, all of his remaining energy ran out, making him close his eyes one more time. Forever sealing him in the darkness he created for himself.

* * *

><p>"<strong>Lelouch vi Britannia, we finally meet in person," <strong>a booming voice asked, the intensity of the voice making it impossible to distinguish whether it was a boy or girl. _'Is that the collective unconscious?' _he asked inwardly, _'Of course it is, I'm supposed to be dead right now.'_

The former emperor forced his heavy eyes open to be met with the culmination of every human will in the universe, taking the form of the planet Jupiter, the Collective Unconscious. This would be his judgment day and he already know that hell was his destination, why even try to kid himself.

He was a demon and demons belong in hell, not in heaven, all he had to do was wait for his sentence.

"**You deem yourself worth of punishment? Though it would make sense knowing that you were setting yourself up for death as the most hated man in the world," **The Collective Unconscious, **"Though it is not up to you to judge your actions in life Lelouch, it is mine, not a single will can change that." **

Lelouch was confused on what it meant by that, what does she mean that she was the only one who could judge his actions. He did the most heinous actions thinkable, how the hell can it say that he didn't deserve to be punished?

"**For every wrong deed you committed, you did a good ten times greater, and the Zero Requiem is far greater than every sin you committed these few months. Therefore you are not worthy of going to hell," **the Collective Unconscious explained, **"but I can not bring you to heaven either too many people believe you a demon to do so." **

"So what now?" Lelouch asked, narrowing his eyes at the giant entity, wondering how fate could be so cruel to him. He didn't preform the Zero Requiem so that he wouldn't be punished, he had destroyed everything to be punished, not saved from torture. He could of done everything diplomatically when he was an Emperor, the Zero Requiem was to ensure that he would be punished.

"**I would like to propose a contract between ourselves," **the Collective Unconscious stated, shocking Lelouch so much that his eyes widened. _'So my I started on this path of destruction with a contract, and I'll end with one,' _Lelouch thought, inwardly laughing at the cruel humor.

"So tell me, what is this contract you propose," Lelouch asked, his amusement in the situation leaking into his voice. **"I take you to another universe," **it answered, **"A place where no one you know or knows you exists, there is no Britannia, and the future is bright for the world. Would you like me to take you there?"**

Lelouch looked at the entity in the sky, for the first time in a long time being completely dumbfounded. Did he really have a choice in the matter, it just said that there was no soul in the world that could deny it, so how would he be able to say no to this?

"Do I really have a choice?" Lelouch asked begrudgingly. **"No you don't have a choice in the matter,"** the Collective Unconscious, **"but I am impressed with your conviction though, every other soul would jump at the opportunity, you are truly a better man than most." **

With that Lelouch felt the overwhelming pressure on his eyelids, forcing him to close them as the world around him seemed to morph into something else. Though fear didn't seem to grow inside him, something deep inside of him believed what the Collective Unconscious had told him.

Now he only had to wait and see where he was going, though that in itself was the longest few seconds of his life. Because the world he was about to come into, was the one where he would make his new life, and hopefully it was a good one.

* * *

><p>Finally the overwhelming pressure on his eyes suddenly lessened substantially, allowing him to pry them open. The amethyst orbs found themselves being bombarded by bright light, blinding him slightly.<p>

Lelouch suddenly finding the energy to do so, he forced himself to sit up. He blinked frantically trying to get his eyes adjusted to the light, he twisted his head towards the source of the light, finding that sunlight was pouring in through an open blind.

It didn't take long to see that this was a bedroom, the fact that there was a bed in it was enough to make that point. Lelouch began listing off the objects in the room that were in plain sight.

_'A pair of computers, a pair of alarm clocks,' _he continued, noticing the amount of things that came in pairs, _'Another bed with some lying in it, a clos-'_

Lelouch had just noticed the other bed in the room, someone was sleeping in it. With his/her head facing towards the wall, he couldn't tell what he/she looked like. The only thing that was visible was the back of his/her head, which revealed that he/she had was messy black hair.

_'Wonder who that could be?' _he thought curiously, wondering who his new room mate was, _'I could always ask, but that would look weird, so how do I do this?' _

Lelouch gaze left his room mate and moved towards one of the alarm clocks that was in the room, which had told him that it was almost seven in the morning.

_'Wow I'm never up this early,' _the former emperor thought letting his mind get off-topic for the first time in a while. He had always had to keep his mind focused that very few things distracted him like any more, so it felt good to allow his mind some reprieve.

Then it occurred to the strategical genius that he didn't have to scheme any longer, which meant that his brain was allowed to think about things a normal teenager would think about. Though there was only one problem with that, he didn't know what a normal teenager thought about, because he wasn't normal.

He let out a sigh at his predicament and slipped himself out of the bed he was lying on. As he pushed himself out of the bed, he felt odd. He strangely felt shorter for some reason, he physically shorter. How was that even possible?

He looked down at his legs as they fell limply out of bed, his feet touching the soft carpet that made up the floor around his bed, noticing that they were shorter than usual.

Narrowing his eyes, he picked himself up out of the bed. Even when he stood up straight, he felt shorter. It took him a moment to get used to the feeling of having shorter legs, which he doubted many people had to go through very often.

Luckily he had always adjusted to things quickly. He made his was towards the door in the middle of the bedroom and pushed his way out into the hallway.

Looking around the sunlight lit hallway, he found that there wasn't much to it, it was very simple.

_'Now where would a bathroom be in this place?' _he thought curiously. A door next to his room had a wooden sign reading something in Japanese that read: Suguha's room. The name sounded it belonged to a female and the wooden cat also told him that it belonged to one of a younger age than himself.

The Japanese markings also told him that he was somewhere in Japan, which proved useful to him. He didn't want to be landed in some place where he didn't know their language.

The former emperor wandered around the upstairs hallway looking for the bathroom, the first attempt he made lead him to the room of an older woman who was sleeping soundly in her bed. She was probably the owner of the house.

His second attempt was much more fruitful, the door had led to bathroom as he hoped. It had the things that were available in a standard bathroom: a toilet, a bath, and a sink with a mirror hanging over it.

The former emperor made his way towards the sink and looked in the mirror, not bothering to close the door behind him. When he reached the mirror, his reflection had made his eyes widen in shock.

Lelouch now knew why he had felt shorter, the person in his reflection had looked exactly what he looked like when he was fourteen. Though there was one thing that didn't seem to change an ounce, it was his eyes, still having their heavy feel to them.

_'Guess that's a trait you can't change so easily,' _he thought, knowing that the weight that your eyes came with only came with experience. It took seeing the best and the worst of humanity, that was the only way to make your eyes like this.

_'So the Collective Unconscious took me to a world where I'm still fourteen, what does that do for me exactly?' _Lelouch thought, extremely confused by the situation, though there was still one thing on his mind, _'Do I still have my Geass?' _

He reached his hand up to his eyes, noting that they didn't seem to be as bony as they used to be, but continued reaching up to his eyes. As his index and middle finger grew close to where he placed his Geass-Resistant contact lenses, his fingers slightly grazed his corneas.

Lelouch let out a relieved sigh, he was finally free of the curse of Geass. The damned power had taken so much away from him, that to be able to be free from it took made him feel so much better.

He turned the cold water nob on the sink, letting water flow from the faucet. He took some in his hand and splashed it on his face, making sure that this wasn't just some dream.

This only accomplished to gain get his face soaking wet. Letting out a frustrated sigh, he reached for the nearby face towel, using it to dry his face.

Returning his gaze back at the mirror, he could only wonder where exactly he fit inside of this new world of his. He could just ask them there names as if he didn't know them, that would be the definition of a stupid idea.

_'Maybe there's something around here that'll tell me who I'm living with,'_ he thought, looking back towards the hallway, _'Guess it couldn't hurt, I do live here after all.' _

Lelouch made his way down the stairs he saw earlier and into what looked like a living room. It was rather small with not too many pieces of furniture. As he scanned the area, a picture frame sitting on a table caught his attention.

The former emperor walked over to the table and picked the picture off the table, the picture displayed a family of five in what seemed to be a park of some kind. He blinked at it, recognizing a younger version of himself from the group of five strangers around him.

He got a strange feeling from the photo, making his eyes linger onto the photo for a good while. Then he realized with every face on the photo, a name popped into his mind. Almost if he was remembering a past event without the nostalgia, and was given just unfamiliarity. He was remembering a memory that he had, but didn't belong to him.

The middle-aged man standing next to the woman from earlier was his father, and nothing else. Which made sense since he knew him as a father only, already being on a first name basis so early in his life would have meant they had some type of problem with each other.

Next came the woman he had saw lying in bed earlier, recognizing her as his mother. The feelings of emptiness and caring trickled inside of him, making him wonder what their relationship had been like to make him feel this way.

Lelouch's eyes drifted onto a young girl, maybe two years younger than his current self, the name Suguha popping into his mind. His memories told him that she was his little sister, but something did strike him as odd. The feelings of unconditional love and emptiness he had felt towards his 'parents' continued to linger inside of him.

The last member of the family was a black-haired boy looking to be around the same age as him, sharing the same grayish-black eyes of the rest of the family. The dark-haired boy was Lelouch's brother, named Kazuto and unlike the other members of his new 'family', the empty feeling he felt had disappeared completely.

He could feel a connection between himself and Kazuto, but it wasn't one of close siblings. It was one best friends had, much like the one he had with Suzaku. It definitely wasn't a normal family dynamic by any sense of the word.

The former emperor set the picture frame back down onto the carefully, trying to place it back into its original location. Though it had left him with more questions than answers.

**-Sugu P.O.V-**

Suguha had awoken to the sound of her alarm clock blaring into her ears. Hitting the snooze button, she pulled herself from her bed and let out a quiet yawn.

She began her usual routine of getting ready for early morning kendo practice, breakfast, kendo club, and then repeat the next day. It wasn't like she had much to do here at home in the first place, especially with both her brothers acting like complete jerks to her.

It wasn't that they were being mean to her and it wasn't even recent, they had just stopped being with her entirely about four years ago. It made her wonder if she had done something to drive them away, but she wouldn't give up on them.

She wanted to be a part of their lives again, but every time she attempted they were always playing around on their computers, playing their beloved online games. It infuriated her though she pretended to keep her cheerful outlook on life, not wanting to see the effect their actions had on her.

She shed the long t-shirt she wore as her pajamas and dressed into her kendo training uniform, making her way out of the room. As she walked over to the stairs she peered into the open door of her brothers' room, seeing that Lelouch's bed was completely empty.

_'Is Lelouch already awake?' _she thought curiously, wondering what Lelouch was doing up at this hour. It was about seven o'clock, but Lelouch never woke up before ten o'clock. When he did, he was usually on his computer doing whatever he did on their.

Suguha made her way down the stairs, where the voice of her older brother Lelouch, called out to her, "Good morning Sugu."

His voice had completely taken her off-guard, making her foot miss the next step down. Her foot twisted under her as it touched to foot underneath the target step, making a sharp pain go through her ankle as she fell forward. She expected to be in more pain once she hit the ground, but suddenly her fall suddenly came to a stop.

"Are you alright?" the worried voice of Lelouch, making her realize that he had caught her. Opening her eyes, she was currently being held bridal style by her older brother, who had a relieved smile plastered onto her face. She shook her head as pain continued to shoot from her ankle, making Lelouch reply worriedly, "Where are you hurt?"

Suguha pointed towards her ankle, Lelouch carried her to the couch and placed her down gently. He touched her ankle lightly, causing a slight sting to go through the painful ankle.

"Don't worry, it doesn't seem to be broken, a sprain at worst," Lelouch diagnosed expertly, surprising Suguha greatly, "I'll go find something that will stop the swelling."

With that Lelouch left her side and moved to the kitchen, leaving her there in her thoughts.

_'When did Lelouch learn how to diagnose a sprained ankle from such a light touch?' _she questioned inwardly before her aching ankle stopped her from thinking, _'Man that hurts!' _

Thankfully her raven-haired brother came back holding a plastic bag holding fulled of ice. Her brother placed the bag onto her ankle, numbing the pain in her ankle greatly, allowing Suguha to let out a sigh in relief.

"Thanks," she thanked in relief. "Don't mention it," Lelouch reassured kindly, "You're my sister right?"

Suguha's eyes widen at the rhetorical question, not expecting such kindness from her estranged older brother. She inwardly berated herself at thinking that way about her brother, believing that it was wrong to think that her brother of all people wouldn't help her if she was hurt.

Yet something seemed off about the whole situation. The kindness in Lelouch's voice didn't sound anything like the Lelouch she knew, even before he began pushing her out of his life. The tone felt like it was said by someone older than him, decades older, when they had mastered the art of sounding kind.

It wasn't like she minded that it was happening, the tone in his voice able to sooth her into immediate relaxation. She stared at Lelouch as he held the bag of ice on her aching ankle, staring into the pools of violet that were his eyes, which some how seemed aged in a way. Much like the way her grandfather's eyes in the few moments she could remember him, holding so much experience and knowledge that it was impossible to ignore. So how was it possible that Lelouch had the exact same look in his eyes?

"What happened to us?" Lelouch asked, the sudden question snapping her out of her thoughts. The look on her brother's face was one of regret, allowing his eyes to be shadowed by his long raven bangs. Once again his voice snapped her out of her thoughts, her older brother now looking over towards the family photo that they had taken five years ago, "We looked so happy back then, what happened to us?"

That was the question she wanted to ask her brothers for so long and as it turns out, Lelouch didn't know either. These past four years he and Kazuto had been driving her out of their lives for reasons unknown to her. She was left speechless by the question, until finally all the pent-up emotion about the subject finally boiled over to the surface. Tears began welling up in her eyes something that Lelouch noticed immediately, but didn't say anything, allowing her to process her emotions.

"I really don't know," she answered, her tone of a person who was about to break out in tears and that's what she did. Hot tears began flowing down her cheeks as she let out every ounce of sadness she had accumulated from the past four years.

Lelouch didn't say anything at first, he just wra7th pped his arms around her and whispered softly to her, "It's okay to cry, it always is."

At this the dam that held back the rest of her teals broke, losing herself in the pouring out of emotion. She began weeping into the chest of her older brother, but with the showing of all the sadness she had, she felt happy. One of her brothers had finally acknowledged the situation between them made her so happy Giving her hope that she wasn't going to be shut out from their lives for any longer.

**-Lelouch P.O.V-**

When Suguha had stopped crying, an hour had passed by, and Lelouch never once thought of disengaging the embrace that he held her in. Not really expecting such an outpouring of emotion, as it was just to figure out why he felt so empty when he looked at her. It really compelled him to ask the question and he believed it to be the right move.

He didn't enjoy making girls cry, though this one seemed to be more positive than the other times he had. It felt as if he had unknowingly mended a strained relationship between this world's Lelouch and herself. Though he didn't get an answer to his prior question, he felt like that this was something more important.

He scoffed mentally, wondering what C.C would think if she saw this. The infamous demon emperor comforting an almost complete stranger in his arms as she cried. He thanked the collective unconscious that he was in a different universe.

When his 'sister' finally pulled her face away from his chest, the violet t-shirt he was wearing was now completely soaked with tears. Though he wasn't in any position to complain, considering he didn't have to hug to comfort her, so this where it got him. Yet as he watched her pull away from him, a set of memories had came to mind. Explaining everything in great detail.

He wasn't a blood member of the Kirigaya family, his birth family was Charles and Marianne Lamperouge, a happy couple who had moved to the Saitama, area a year prior. They learned of his eventual birth some time in January. Lelouch Lamperouge was born October 7th, 2008, coincidentally being the same day that Kazuto had been born.

A few days after their respective births, Kazuto and his parents were killed in the same accident, the two being the only two people who had survived the accident. Both were sent to the same orphanage, where Kazuto's aunt and uncle had came to adopt their nephew.

Then their carer had told them how lucky Kazuto was to have family. As Lelouch, who was in the next crib, didn't have any family who were able to take him in. Prompting them to ask her how Lelouch had gotten in the orphanage, finding out about Lelouch's parents being in the same accident.

Feeling bad for Lelouch, they had decided to adopt Kazuto believing that they could take another child in.

Fast forwarding a few years in the future, both began to follow in their mother's footsteps and dive into computers. Finding it a much better past time than the kendo lessons they were almost being forced to take by their grandfather.

They began rebuilding beat-up computers and turned them better than brand new, allowing them to process programs that most of the really expensive computers couldn't handle. This made them outcast in their schools often times showing more interest in technology than making friends.

This had also strengthened their relationship, sharing a trait most found unappealing, growing closer than most brothers would hope over the the fact that they had stopped taking kendo did not sit well with their grandfather, who started to beat them once he learned they quit. Even when this happening, the two still found time to have fun with Suguha who had begun taking kendo lessons to cover for all of them. Having such a relationship between all siblings being really rare.

Then one day Kazuto had found a document while sifting through the forgotten data banks of the National Registry, one detailing their respective adoptions by the Kirigaya family. This had served to drive a wedge between the pair and Suguha, as they felt like they weren't a real part of the family.

Though their relationship didn't suffer, but improve, as they shared the feeling.

As the memories had concluded, Lelouch was shocked. The pure circumstance of the situation hitting him. All the circumstances that needed to happen was astounding, all the things that should of happened to get to this point had happened.

Though the memories of younger Lelouch ignoring Suguha just because he didn't feel like a part of the family had sickened, especially when his sisters in his past life were so important to him, but what could he do about someone else's actions?

_'Why did the Collective Unconscious bring me here of all places? Is this some test?' _he questioned angrily, as he was never one who liked to be toyed with.

"Are you alright Lelouch?" Suguha asked, snapping him out of his thoughts as she waved her hand in front of him. Lelouch blinked as he realized that he had spaced out.

"Yeah I'm fine," Lelouch reassured, letting out a tired sigh, "I should get you back up to your room. I don't think you're going anywhere with that sprained ankle of yours."

"But what about kendo practice?" his 'sister' protested, something that upset him greatly, "My ankle doesn't hurt as much as it did earlier, I can still go!"

The girl was injured and she still wanted to go and practice? _'She must really care about, then again its has been such an important part of her life so I can't blame her,' _he noted mentally.

"I think they'll understand if you miss one practice because of injury," Lelouch countered, taking on a brotherly tone before running a hand through his raven-black hair, "Now come on, lets get you to bed."

Lelouch slipped his arms under Suguha and heaved her up into the air. He began the rather tolling task of carrying the girl up the stairs and into her room. He laid her down onto her bed and told her in the same brotherly tone from earlier, "Rest."

Suguha begrudgingly nodded in resignation and laid her head back onto her pillow. Prompting Lelouch to exit her bedroom, closing the door behind him. When he turned around, he found his adoptive mother standing outside. She seemed extremely worried, obviously noticing something wrong.

"I heard crying earlier, was it your sister?" his 'mother' asked worriedly. Lelouch didn't reply, only nodding in response. In which the worried mother continued with, "Why was she crying?"

"She sprained her ankle," Lelouch began, his tone completely without emotion, making his adoptive mother flinch, "Can you tell her club she won't be making it today?"

His 'mother' nodded, left completely speechless. Lelouch didn't want to speak with his adoptive mother, he felt like nothing really could be said about the whole situation. It was his responsibility to repair now and he was going to do it his way, for now all he needed to do was talk to his 'brother'.

He walked over to the door to his room and walked in, leaving his mother in the hall completely speechless.

* * *

><p>Lelouch watched over the sleeping form of his 'brother', Kazuto, and turned back to the computer screen. His eyebrow twitched in annoyance as another minute ticked by.<p>

_'How the hell can someone sleep so much?' _he asked impatiently as it was now ten-thirty, three hours since he had decided to wait for him to wake up. He continued to read the text on the page about world history, now getting a section about a war between several major countries of the world, simply called World War II. He had already read all of the major events leading up to the present date, now he was just re-reading information that he thought interesting.

Lelouch let out a tired sigh and leaned back in his seat and wondered what to do next until his adoptive brother would wake up. Though when he was searching his mind for something to do, a thought came to mind. He felt almost compelled to go and look under his bed.

Lelouch did as his mind commanded and went over to his bed. He knelt down and looked underneath the bed frame and looked into the space. What he found surprised him, it was a helmet of some kind. It looked extremely bulky and had a small piece of glass where the eyes should go. On top of the helmet was a word inscribed in Japanese characters, NerveGear.

_'NerveGear?' _he repeated inwardly, studying the helmet curiously, _'Wonder why I would have this.' _

Lelouch immediately placed the NerveGear down onto his bed and returned to his computer. He typed 'NerveGear' into the search box in the top right corner of the screen. After a few seconds the screen went to a list of pages on the helmet.

Seeing as Wikipedia was continually at the top of every search list, Lelouch clicked on it and waited for the page to load once again as he really didn't want to spend any more time on the subject than necessary.

He began reading what the people had posted on the site and was greatly intrigued by the bulky helmet that sat on his bed.

The NerveGear is a new piece of virtual reality or FullDive technology, a system that sent microwaves to your brain to simulate real life. It was created by a man named, Kayaba Akihiko, and was recently released to the public in May.

The piece of technology had been proclaimed as the greatest thing to hit the face of gaming in the last decade. Though it did not sell initially because there were no major games that supported the system, so last month a thousand beta testers were allowed access to the first major game for the VR system.

It was a MMO called Sword Art Online or SAO by the players. As fortune had it, he was one of the thousand beta testers. Kazuto had also received a copy of the beta, if these foreign memories of his were correct. They had spent a good amount of last month exploring ten of the hundred floors in which the game's world, Aincard, was made out of. The two of them had gotten the farthest together than any other players in the beta, who were relatively inexperienced in MMO games.

The beta didn't last forever, it had only lasted a month before being released to the public yesterday at midnight. The beta testers were offered the full game before the other people who have to wait through the lines and buy them at retail stores. So it was no surprise that they both bought the game immediately.

The online servers would go online today at eleven-thirty in the morning, seeing it was already eleven twenty-five, he should probably wake Kazuto so that he could get online too. He walked over to his sleeping 'brother' and gently nudged the messy-haired teen on the shoulder lightly. The nudge was, of course, wasn't enough to wake him up from his deep slumber.

Lelouch clasped his hands together next to Kazuto's exposed ear quietly and brought them apart, a small smirk crept onto his face as he prepared for the next few moments. He quickly brought his hands together next to his adoptive brother's ear with the most force he could possibly muster, startling his adoptive brother out of his skin.

Kazuto let out a loud yelp as he jumped out from under his blanket, making Lelouch snicker softly at the display. This drew his adoptive brother's attention towards him, he bore an angry scowl something that Lelouch has faced several times before.

"Get up sleepy head or we're going to miss the server opening for SAO," Lelouch explained in a sing-song voice, a coy smile that would make C.C proud gracing his face. Kazuto blinked at him disbelievingly before his head snapped over to his alarm clock. It took him two minutes to get his brother awake, a bit longer than he expected or wanted, but how could he argue with someone he didn't know.

"Oh crap, we better long on!" Kazuto replied hurriedly. He rushed out of his bed and pulled his NerveGear from under his bed. Lelouch took this time to waltz over to his bed casually and plugged the wire connecting the headset to the internet, into the computer's tower.

Kazuto was still in the middle of turning on his computer when Lelouch placed his copy of SAO into the disk drive. The former emperor placed the bulky headset onto his head and began laying himself flat on his bed slowly, his adoptive brother rushing to do the same.

Lelouch turned his head over to Kazuto's side of the room, seeing that he had put himself in the same position as himself, Lelouch muttered the words that would start the FullDive procedure and take him to Aincard, "Link start."

* * *

><p>Lelouch was astounded as the interfaces in front of him quickly selected the settings previously set by this world's Lelouch. It had set his preferred language to Japanese, calibrated his limbs, and selected a character named Lerouge.<p>

_'Lerouge, unique name,' _he noted as his vision was soon enveloped by flashes of light, making it look as if I was going through a portal. When the lights had faded, he didn't feel as if he were in some game or as if he had just been looking at a picture on the screen. No, he felt as if his physical body had been moved.

Lelouch noticed that he could see the elements of a HUD in his vision, telling him his player's name, health, and level. A name popped up in the center of his screen reading: Starter City. He took a look at the city around him, everything looked and felt like real life. He could smell the clean air around him, hear the voices of other players talk around him taking in every detail as he was. Hell he could even feel the sun's rays on his face as he stood there.

Lelouch didn't feel any different physically though. Though looking down, he saw that his choice of clothing had changed.

He now wore a long-sleeved violet shirt, being covered by a light leather chest piece which he doubted would protect him from much. A pair of black pants and combat boots made up the bottom piece of his avatar's outfit. Which was really nothing special, as everyone else seemed to have the same clothes as he did, the only real difference were the colors so it wasn't saying much.

_'This is...' _Lerouge began in complete amazement, being impressed by something for the first time in awhile, _'This is amazing!' _

After collecting himself from his earlier amazement, he began noting that all the players around him had green cursors on top of them. This had meant that they were friendly players, a different color would either mean they're a NPC, a criminal, or a hostile enemy.

"Lerouge!" his ears perking at the sound of someone calling his name behind him, pronouncing his name as Le Rouge. Lelouch turned on a heel to see an absurdly handsome man running in his direction. Though the strange thing was that he could see the character's name, unlike the other players who just had the green cursor on top of their heads. The man's name graphic read Kirito, the name unfamiliar to Lerouge at first before he realized that it was the name Kazuto had chosen for his avatar.

Kazuto ended up running directly past him, but not without gesturing that he wanted Lelouch to follow him. Lelouch did as instructed and ran after his adoptive brother, though in his usual fit of paranoia, he asked himself, _'Wonder where he's taking me?' _

Lelouch knew all too well that he had no reason to not trust Kirito, as he only knew Lelouch as his brother and nothing more. Not the masked vigilante Zero, not the demon emperor Lelouch vi Britannia, just plain old Lelouch Kirigaya. Though the point that could be made that Lelouch didn't know Kazuto whatsoever, he had foreign memories of him, but no real experiences.

Lelouch realized that thinking that way wouldn't help either, so he shook away his paranoia for the moment as he continued running through the streets of Starter City.

Then out of nowhere, someone screamed on the top of their lungs to stop. Taken completely off-guard, Kazuto did as commanded and skidded to a stop. Lelouch, who was several feet behind him, had time to gradually come to a walking stop.

"Hey! Bros wait up!" yelled the same voice, a crimson-haired male emerging from the blur of the crowd, "You two are beta testers right?!"

The two adoptive siblings blinked in perfect unison at the question the man had asked and then nodded hesitantly.

"Good, my name is Klien," Klien greeted bowing slightly. "Ah, my name is Lerouge," Lelouch introduced himself and then gestured to Kazuto, "and this is my close associate Kirito."

"Nice to meet you," Kazuto greeted, sounding slightly uncomfortable. "So back to business," Klien began sternly, "Can either of you two show me the ropes?"

Lelouch wasn't sure that he could trust Klien, who indeed told him his name, but he wouldn't be sure unless he had saw his name graphic. There was also the fact that he had came out of completely nowhere, but that was essentially the only way to make friends in MMO's. The former emperor wondered why he was caring so much, this was a game, why would any one need to betray someone else so early into the release?

"Sure, I'll do it," Kazuto stated hesitantly, shaking Lelouch from the clutches of his thoughts, "Lerouge go ahead to the plains, I'll go and show Klien the basics."

Lelouch blinked and then nodded tentatively, and then in a whisper loud enough for only Kazuto to hear he reminded him, "Careful."

Though the same thing more likely could have been said about him, considering that he had no clue how the game worked. Then again the foreign memories may just explain it to him like it has been. Just when he thought that, the memories of him playing in the beta came back to him.

Everyone who is starting out would get a choice between a variety of one-handed weapon skills, that would allow them to use a certain category of weapons, but Lelouch had chosen the simplest one of the bunch, the one-handed straight-sword skill.

In combat, you would fight with a sword just like in real life, dodging and attacking when you would have an opportunity. Then there were the sword skills, which pretty much said everything. A set of moves that one wouldn't be able to do by themselves which guaranteed a hit on your opponent. Though it would cause a point of overall complete weakness called the 'cool down' stage which rendered the player completely immobile, implemented so that players wouldn't spam the skills constantly.

The goal in SAO was to clear all hundred levels in Aincard, which seemed like an impossible thing to do, in a month of non-stop playing the farthest any one got was floor ten.

Still Lelouch really had no clue where he was going, his legs were really turning on their own now, the only thing he was doing was just the actual running without tackling a random bystander. Which was easy enough considering people were too busy being amazed by the world around them to really move around.

Eventually he found himself running past the gate of Starter City and into the open plains outside of the safe zone. He looked for any enemy to fight, wanting to see how difficult the game was this early in the game.

As he ran, he eventually ran into a giant boar creature standing proud at around his waste region. The name of the monster simply being named Frenzy Boar. Lelouch already knew that the boar was the weakest enemy of the game and decided to fight the giant pig.

Skimming his index finger downwards in front of him, the player's personal menu opened. Quickly tapping the inventory box and equipped the starter sword. He reached behind his right shoulder where his sheathe lay and gripped the handle.

Pulling it from the sheathe, the blade made a loud noise as he unsheathed it. Lelouch quickly advanced on the boar's position and placed the flat part of his blade onto his right shoulder, the blade glowing a dim violet as he did so. The boar turned towards him and got in a defensive stance, signifying that he had provoked the monster. Thought the action of getting prepared for an attack on the boar's part was for naught.

With a single horizontal slash that caught the boar's mid-section with the sword skill horizontal, the weak monster's health depleted rapidly on the moment it reached zero, the boar exploded in a spray of blue pixels. Lelouch's body slumped over for a second as the cool down took effect.

The former emperor smirked darkly at the feeling of killing the virtual boar, there being a certain satisfaction of slicing straight through something. The best part was that there was tug on the blade or a resistance that made him pull the sword with him as he flew forward.

Wanting to feel the sensation once again, he took off looking for a monster that was roaming the grasslands. Following the path that he took to get outside of Starter City so that he wouldn't get lost killing random mobs, as they were called in MMO's.

As he ran, Lelouch noticed another monster off in the distance, this time being more than just one. A pack of literal wolves to be exact. He counted at least six in the pack. Probably too much for him to fight with this level, but he couldn't die in this world and he wanted a challenge.

Lelouch charged the pack of wolves with uncharacteristic recklessness, quickly gaining the attention of all of the wolves. Making the former emperor stop and go into a defensive stance, which he was taught during his early years as a prince during his mandatory swordsmanship classes.

The raven-haired teen watched as the wolves began to encircle him from all sides, briefly remembering that he was just lucky to see a pack of wolves this early considering most in the general region would only spawn if someone wanted to advance to the next towns one-by-one.

The red-eyed canines let out menacing growls, not affecting Lelouch to the slightest, finding that having to stare down the barrels of guns much more terrifying, which in all actuality was reasonable.

A pair of wolves on both of his sides began converging onto him slowly, waiting to pounce onto him at the same time. Lelouch knew that the goal was to make him dodge forward and into the eager teeth of their comrades, so when they pounced Lelouch rolled to the right, the wolf just barely flying overhead.

The action didn't come smoothly, finding himself lying on his back instead on his feet, but it served the purpose. Lelouch remembered that more wolves were closing in on him due to his supine position.

The raven-haired teen heaved himself to his feet with a grunt, just in time to the lead wolf of the pack. Having an amazing reaction time by nature, Lelouch side-stepped the lunge attempted by the beast and slashed downwards. Getting a critical hit as he lobbed the wolf's head clean off, ending up much like the frenzy boar from earlier.

Immediately after, the other wolves wasted no time to pounce at him. Thinking quickly, Lelouch activated the vertical sword skill and slashed through the nearest wolf, ending up with him on the other side of the wave of wolves.

The wolf he had hit with vertical had exploded like the other monsters he had slain today, exploding into a million blue pixels.

_'Come on, hurry up!' _Lelouch thought, beginning to panic as the cool down set in. He could hear the wolves beginning to close back onto him. Then finally the cool down ended, allowing him to turn around, just to see the lead wolf leaping onto him.

Finding no better option, Lelouch slashed at the leaping wolf with the novice sword, hoping to at least block the attack. Everything felt like it was in complete slow motion, the virtual beast in front of him bearing its teeth. Until the tip of his sword met the neck of the wolf, impaling it right through. The hit had scored a crit, draining the wolf's health to zero.

Another wolf came at Lelouch right after the dead wolf turned into pixels, catching him completely off-guard. Instinctively he raised his free arm to block the attack. No pain coursed through him as the monster chomped down on his arm, but he did notice his health depleting by maybe a quarter.

Lelouch slammed the tip of his blade into the wolf's body, successfully shoving the wolf off of his arm, depleting half of the wolf's total health. Before any more wolves could pounce on him, Lelouch backed up several feet from the pack of wolves, chuckling softly at the encounter.

_'Damn that was close,' _Lelouch thought, watching the movements of the encroaching wolves, watching for any openings, _'Maybe I should get out of here while I can, then again maybe not.' _

A wide grin spread across Lelouch's face as he realized something intriguing, he was having fun. He was having fun, but the strange part was that he didn't immediately recognize it as fun. He found it incredibly funny that he had completely forgotten what having genuine fun was like.

_'I guess having fun just isn't possible when conquering the world,' _he thought, realizing that the wolves had closed in on him while he was lost in his thoughts, _'I really need to stop doing that.' _

Lelouch decided with the amount of health, 200/250, classifying the mauling the last dog had done to his arm as its most powerful attack. He could take a few grazes from the wolves, but a few direct hits would end up with him dead. Seeing as there was no clear opening for him to hit in the wolves' formation, having putting the wolf with the least health in the back, making it impossible to pick it off.

Lelouch let out a dark chuckle as he realized that there were absolutely no openings for him to hit at this level. It would take a miracle to take down all of the wolves. Then again, he was Zero, the Man of Miracles.

* * *

><p>Lelouch sat on a bench in Starter City, eating a piece of bread that he had bought from a vendor earlier with the money or Col, that he had gotten from killing the pack of wolves. He had some how been able to kill the rest of the wolves and with all the experience he had received from the wolves, he easily reached level 2 and now was half-way to reaching level 3.<p>

_'Even when I'm dead, I still make miracles, even if this is just in a game,' _he thought, a wryly smirk gracing his face. He silently watched the other players exploring Starter City in curiosity, as he expected them to. All of this was just so amazing that even he felt like going out into this new world, that he felt like thanking the creator of SAO, Kayaba Akihiko, in person. Though that was probably a long shot if any.

_'There isn't much for me to do here,' _he thought idly, getting more and more bored as the seconds flew by, _'I should probably log off.' _

Lelouch opened his personal menu and began navigating to the 'log out' button and then his finger stopped suddenly. The reason being was because there was no 'log out' button and he knew for a fact that it was supposed to be there.

_'Is this some kind of glitch or something?' _he asked mentally, looking back up at the other players wandering around, the seemed to be having the same problems. Many reacted the same way he did, others more drastically than others. Some kept a cool head and tried to reassure the ones that were completely blowing it out of proportion. Before he could say anything, he was suddenly consumed by a sudden bloom of blue pixels.

When the pixels had dissipated around him, he found himself to be surrounded by other players. His avatar's dark brown eyes dashed around the surrounding area, finding that he had been teleported to the stadium in Starter City.

Many people reacted as expected, questioning what was going on and why were they here. Though the answer was clear enough, someone had forced a mass teleport.

"Look up there!" another player called out, making everyone in the stadium look up simultaneously. In the sky was a red message screen, simply saying warning. Then the one sign soon multiplied to hundreds, soon blanketing the sky, masking the orange hue of the setting virtual sun.

Then out of the thin cracks of the warning signs, something poured out of them. The masses of whatever that was soon began to clump together and massed into a giant floating crimson cloak. There was a body in the cloak, but the cloaked man didn't have a face. Other players began to question what was happening. Lelouch remained silent, also wondering what exactly was happening. Then a loud booming voice said to them, "Attention, players. I welcome you to my world."

_'My world?' _Lelouch repeated, curious about what he had meant by that. "My name is Akihiko Kayaba," Kayaba greeted, making everyone around him relax, but himself of course, "And of this moment, I am in control of this world."

Lelouch's eyes widened at the statement, knowing that something was going to go wrong. The other players didn't know that, trusting the man that had created the game to not do anything. Though Lelouch knew better, he knew the evil what even good men can do.

"I'm sure you've all noticed that an item is missing from your main menus, the log out button," Kayaba began, getting a few murmurs from the crowd around Lelouch, "Let me assure you that this is not a defect in the game. I repeat, this is not a defect. This is how Sword Art Online was designed to be."

Lelouch clenched his fists at the statement, knowing what was going to happen before Kayaba had even spoke, "You cannot log yourself out of SAO, and no from the outside will be able to shut down or take off the 'NerveGear' from your head. If anyone would attempt to do so, a transmitter inside the NerveGear will discharge a microwave into your skull, destroying your brain, thus ending your life."

Many angry players began cursing at the cloaked figure, all in vain. Unlike Lelouch who knew that the NerveGear would be able to do such a thing, so if the safety were turned off, it would do as Kayaba had said. Luckily the NerveGear had an internal battery so even if the power would be cut, they would still live.

"Despite my warning, the families and friends of some of the players have attempted removing the NerveGear, an unfortunate decision, to say the least," Kayaba continued, his voice completely indifferent, "As a result, the game now has two-hundred thirteen less players than when it began. They've both been erased from Aincard and the real world."

Lelouch didn't flinch, being the formal emperor that killed millions of people, a few hundred innocent people dead didn't affect him whatsoever. Then several screens popped in front of Kayaba, all playing news reports of the event.

"As you can see, international media outlets have round-the-clock coverage of everything, including the deaths. At this point, it's safe to assume that the likelihood of a NerveGear being removed is minimal at best. I hope this brings you a little comfort as you attempt to clear the game," Kayaba began sounding a little proud of himself as he continued, "It's important to remember the following: There is no longer any way to revive someone within the game. If your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be deleted from the system... forever. And the NerveGear will simultaneously destroy your brain.

There is only one way for a player to escape now, you must clear the game. Right now, you're gathered on Floor One, the lowest level of Aincrad.

If you can get through the dungeon and defeat the boss, you may advance to the next floor.  
>Defeat the boss on Floor 100, and you will clear the game."<p>

The other players began to question everything the cloaked man was saying, a few realized that it was no use questioning the man who was currently in control of all of them and kept silent. Though there were a few who began doubting that the goal of reaching level 100 was even attainable, which bugged Lelouch greatly.

"Last but not least, I've placed a little gift for every player in there inventory," Kayaba began, "Please have a look."

Curious, Lelouch opened his inventory and found an item that wasn't there before, a mirror. Equipping the item, it appeared in his hand showing his avatar's face. Then in a flash of pixels spreading across his face, instead of the avatar's face in the mirror, he found his **own** amethyst eyes staring back at him. That wasn't it, he felt as if he had returned to his real life body. Every contour had felt perfectly correct.

_'How did...' _he trailed off, wondering how his actual face and body had been able to be put into the game before the memories told him, _'The high-density signal device! It can see my face! Not just that, when he had first gotten into the NerveGear, there was a calibration stage that made him feel all across his body. So Kayaba had taken the data and replaced them with our avatars.' _

Recovering faster than most, Lelouch's gaze returned on Kayaba, who began to speak once again, "Right now, you are probably wondering why. Why would Akihiko Kayaba, developer of Sword Art Online and the NerveGear, do this? Ultimately, my goal is a simple one. The reason I had created Sword Art Online was to control the fate of a world of my design."

_'So he's doing this to quench his god complex?' _he thought, completely outraged at the notion. Since the only other people he knew to have a god complex were in the Royal Family, he didn't have too many good experiences with people of the kind.

"Bastard..." the raven-haired teen growled aloud. "As you can see, I've achieved my goal. This marks an end of the tutorial and the official launch of Sword Art Online," he continued, "Players, I wish you the best of luck."

With that, the cloak began disappearing past the red warning signs. Leaving the players to their thoughts, not one person saying a single word. The other players didn't move, completely shocked by what had just occurred. Though it was already stated that Lelouch wasn't just another player.

_'So this game isn't a game anymore. If I die here, I die in real life. He's telling the truth, he wouldn't pull a move like this if he wasn't,' _he thought, hanging his head so that his raven-black bangs covered his face with shadows, _'Well then...' _

With that thought, Lelouch began making his way towards the exits as he noticed the red warning signs had began to disappear.

Lelouch needed to get out of Starter City and to one of the outside villages. He needed to level up, to become stronger so that he could get himself and the other players out of SAO. So he needed to get to the quests and monsters that gave him the most experience. He wasn't going to allow anyone else to die if he had any say in it.

In his old life, he could care less if he killed a random innocent in his endeavors, selfishly shedding blood left-to-right for his own purposes. Lelouch refused to think that way once again, redemption being his drive, he ran as fast as his virtual legs would carry him.

The man who was once known as demon emperor had known that saving his fellow players wouldn't come close to redeeming what he had done as Zero and Emperor of Britannia. Though if anything it would serve to calm all the guilt he felt, giving himself the knowledge he had some kind of conscience inside his black heart. Then his thoughts fell onto his 'brother' as he ran.

Knowing how his new adoptive brother thought, Lelouch knew that Kazuto would do the same and head to the next town. So he planned to meet him at the nearest village to Starter City. Weaving his way past all buildings of Starter City.

When he ran past the gates of Starter City, he followed the path that he knew would end up leading him to his next destination. Suddenly a wolf spawned directly in front of him. The sight of the red-eyed monster caused determination to spread inside him.

_'I will get these people out of here, I will beat this game, because I am Zero!' _he began, determination deep in his thoughts, unsheathing his sword and placed it onto his shoulder. The same violet glow appeared around Lelouch's sword as the sword skill vertical activated, sending him forward, slashing through the wolf. One thought running through his mind, _'The man who will destroy the world of Aincard!' _

* * *

><p>Well that's it folks. I hoped you enjoyed and I hope you will point out anything I may of got wrong. I also already know that people will question why the Collective Unconscious had chosen the world of Sword Art Online, well because I made it that way, deal with it.<p>

Anyways review/follow/favorite and other stuff like that. PEACE OUT!


	2. Chapter 1: Outside Looking In

Hey guys, I am back with chapter 2 of Complete Immersion. Hope you guys enjoyed the prologue of the story. So anyway I hope you guys enjoy this one. Nothing much to say really, so I'm just going to the respond to the reviews that came in for the first chapter.

**Kinunatzs: Thanks for the feedback, even I struggled with the idea of the Sugu/Lulu emotional scene. Though I forgot to say that the question Lelouch asked was of simple curiosity, while Sugu saw it as something else. So still thanks for the support. **

**NUPhoenix: Thanks, I try my best. **

**darkkrt: Don't worry, I will be updating Where Real Monsters Go soon enough, it was that this idea hit me so quickly that I needed to do it. The same way Where Real Monsters Go ended up coming into fruition. **

**Hayden-Strife: Making Lelouch's screen name a knightmare wouldn't work because the Lelouch he had replaced had already set the name during the beta, which he wasn't present for. **

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I don't own either Code Geass or Sword Art Online.

**-Chapter 1: Outside Looking In-**

_'I can't believe it's been a month since being trapped inside of this death game,' _Lelouch thought off-handily. His thought going back to the events of the past month. The only notable thing that happened was that he and Kazuto had reunited at the town next to Starter City. Which wasn't really noteworthy either, they had simply found each other on the path to the next village.

The month after that was spent grinding separately and then regrouping at a designated meeting point. Since they knew where the easiest and the most experience points lay in Floor One, they easily achieved level nine respectively.

Though the frustrating part was that no one was able to find the first boss, Illfang the Kobold Lord, a gigantic crimson dog. Which was extremely hard to find, even for the beta testers, so a month passed without any progress. When Lelouch and Kazuto had heard about a meeting discussing the elusive boss, they immediately made their ways back to Starter City.

They were now sitting in a small marble auditorium where the meeting was taking place, waiting for the leader of the meeting to appear.

"You think they actually found the boss?" Kazuto whispered to him, snapping him out of his thoughts. The young raven-haired teen looked over to his adoptive brother, replying simply, "We can only hope."

"I can feel the optimism," Kazuto stated sarcastically, looking over the other players who had came to the meeting. They were conversing to each other normally, almost if this meeting didn't bring them one more step to being free from this death game.

Kazuto then looked over to his raven-haired brother, who had bore a look that was completely unreadable, something that he hadn't seen in his brother in the fourteen years he knew him. Strangely the last month had been filled with those moments, but Kazuto attributed the change in attitude to be trapped in Aincard. He knew that every player had their own way of dealing with it, nevertheless it made him uneasy.

Lelouch watched over the stage that was surrounded by seats carved out of marble, greatly resembling the an amphitheater of ancient Rome. This was where the meeting concerning Illfang, would commence.

The raven-haired teen wasn't impressed by the number of players who had came to the meeting and hoped, in the likelihood that they will have to fight the first boss, was capable of organizing and directing squads of people.

Eventually the pair of brothers spotted a blue-haired player walk onto the stage, adorning what resembled a medieval knight's armor, that shared the same color scheme of his hair. A blue shield on the man's back with a sword sitting right behind the shield. Both brothers felt the confidence that man had and instantly knew that he was going to be the leader of the meeting. Positioning himself on the stage as expected, he called out to every player in the amphitheater, "Okay, people. Now that everyone's here, lets get this meeting started."

Every player began to cease their conversations and turned to the blue-haired man dressed in a knight's armor.

"So anyway, I want to first thank all of you for coming. Nice to see all of you," the leader of the meeting began cheerily, "My name is Diabel and I like to think of this meeting as my duty as a knight!"

Everyone was equally amused by the statement, all knowing that there was no job system in the game, something in which someone had called out during the laughter.

"You guys want to hear this or not?" Diabel asked the laughing players, who soon quieted down after he spoke as his tone had gotten deadly serious, "Right here's the deal. Our party has found the boss room at the top of the tower today."

Every player in the amphitheater eyes had widen at the announcement, many not expecting that they had found it since it had took more than a month for the combined efforts of every clearer, the name for a player focused on clearing the game, and they still found nothing. So when the clearers present heard of the discovery of Illfang's chamber, they were all ecstatic inside.

"First we need to defeat the boss to advance to Floor Two," Diabel began, stating the obvious, "The next step is to tell everyone in Starter City that it is possible to beat the game!"

The players directly in front of Diabel cheered in unison, all already subscribing the idea. Though many of the other players had already given up hope and were now completely contempt with being stuck in this game for the rest of their lives.

Lelouch wasn't that optimistic, he knew that eventually the Japanese government won't be able to pay for the medical expenses needed to keep every player in the game alive while they were inside, eventually they will have to pull the plug on each and everyone of them.

Analyzing the way Diabel had spoken to the crowd, Lelouch knew that the blue-haired knight was a born leader. He would of made a fine military commander in the real world, but for now he would have to settle with leading a raiding party on Illfang's chamber.

"Fact is, it is our duty as the most capable players in the game! Don't you all agree?" Diabel called out, every player in the lower decks cheered at the statement, clearly affected by the knight's words, "Okay glad to hear that you're all with me on this, now lets figure out how we're going to beat the boss.

First off, we'll team up into parties of six. A typical party doesn't stand a chance against a floor boss, so we need a raid party made up of multiple parties."

The idea made perfect sense. As Diabel said, a normal party wouldn't stand a chance against any boss, even with the amount of players the raid party had at the moment, they wouldn't come close to beating the boss.

The reasoning behind was that having multiple parties was the same reason for having multiple squads on a battlefield. When a squad's numbers would deplete, send another squad to reenforce them so the other squad could have some time to regroup, vice versa.

So Lelouch contributed this to Diabel's strategic knowledge, Lelouch having seen decent commanders fall due to thinking that they'll conquer with numbers alone. Unfortunately the raiding party didn't have numbers on the kobold lord, who could spawn sentinels during the fight. They weren't very high level, but they would prove to be more of a nuisance if they weren't accounted for.

The former emperor was impressed by the blue-haired knight, clearly having a better understanding of strategy than most and had the charisma to inspire people to follow him. He clearly would of made a good military commander in the real world, but this clearly wasn't the real world.

Though as he sat there, one detail about the whole raid picked at him. It was the fact that they really didn't know what they were facing in Illfang. The beta testers had gathered data a substantial amount of data on the kobold lord during the beta, but it wasn't completely certain.

Lelouch doubted that someone as smart as Kayaba wouldn't make things that easy for them, his goal was to entrap him in Aincard. The mad genius even said that he had complete control of this world, so it would make sense to change some aspects of the first ten bosses to catch them by surprise. It was what he would do in Kayaba's place.

The raven-haired teen glanced over at his adoptive brother, wondering what he thought about the situation. Though something else had caught his attention, it was a cloaked figure, sitting on the same row as they were. The figure's gender was indistinguishable due to the fact that that he or she had hid their face from sight with a crimson cloak. The figure was completely alone, no one else even acknowledging that they was even there at all. So he came to the conclusion that he or she had been left out.

Kazuto and himself made up their entire party and he didn't have any qualms with it, as they were the two of the highest leveled players in the game at this point. Lelouch knew that having a party of a single player wouldn't bode well, especially for the player.

The young raven-haired teen stood from his marble seat and walked over to the cloaked figure and sat down next to the figure. This caught the attention of the figure immediately, though to someone less attentive, it would of looked like the person ignored him completely.

"You got left out?" Lelouch asked the cloaked stranger indifferently, his amethyst eyes glancing over towards the hooded figure. For a second, he could of swore he saw a strand of orange hair past the hood, which brought up a few memories of Shirley. "Not even close," the figure replied defensively, the voice clearly being one of a female's, "Everyone else already seems to know one another."

"So you're a solo player too?" Kazuto asked from besides him, surprising Lelouch slightly as he did not notice his 'brother' following him over to the girl. Looking back over to the her, Lelouch was just able to catch a glimpse of a nod from underneath the crimson hood.

"Would you like to join our party then, you heard what he said, we've all got a better chance if we stick together," Kazuto offered casually, assuring her that she did not have to accept the invitation. "Sure," the cloaked girl answered in a completely deadpan tone.

Kazuto had clearly expected a bit more of a reaction from the girl, making Lelouch snicker softly, which earned him a painless elbow in the ribs from his adoptive brother, causing an even more amused smirk creep onto Lelouch's features.

Kazuto then sent the crimson-cloaked girl a party request, which she accepted as soon as it popped up. Lelouch had heard his 'brother' grumble something under his breath, probably directed towards him.

The young raven-haired teen glanced at the left-hand corner of his HUD, to see a new party member graphic underneath his own status bar. The name simply read: Asuna, one of the more unique names he had found in the game so far.

"It looks like everyone has partied up. Now then..." Diabel began before he was suddenly cut-off by a yell from the top of the amphitheater.

"Hold up a second!" came the voice, drawing everyone's attention towards him. There at the top of the amphitheater was a male player, the front of his figure completely covered by the shadows that came in through the spaces at the marble columns at the top of the theater.

Though Lelouch was able to see that he had haired that spiked up in several tufts. Then the figure bounded down the seats of the theater gracefully, now able to see that his spiked hair was the color orange. When he finally reached the ground floor of the theater, he yelled out loud enough for everyone to hear him, "My name's Kibaou, got that!

Before we take on the boss, I want to get something off my chest! We all know that two thousand players have died so far, yeah? Some of you need to apologize right now!"

Everyone in the theater froze, wanting to know who the mysterious spiky-haired was blaming right now. Everyone except Lelouch of course, who already knew he was talking about. He was talking about the beta testers.

Lelouch had heard some players talking about the beta testers, blaming them for taking all the easy experience quests and knowing where the good experience giving mobs spawned. Which wasn't right at all, since much of the information the beta testers had collected had went into the starter's handbook. Which was given to all the players who survived the initial SAO incident.

"Kibaou, I think I know who you're talking about," Diabel began, "Are you referring to the ex-beta testers?"

"Of course I mean them!" Kibaou retorted, "The day this stupid game started, the beta testers got up and vanished right?"

The players around them began nodding, many of them recalling that the beta-testers had vanished, making it hard for everyone who wasn't a beta-tester as many didn't know how to play. Looking over to Kazuto, he saw his 'brother' gulp anxiously, not wanting to stick out from the crowd.

"They all ditched the beginners! They snagged all the good hunting spots and grabbed all the easy quests too!" Kibaou continued, completely infuriated, "They were the only ones getting stronger here, they've ignored us like we're nothing. Hell, I bet there are beta-testers here now!"

With that, every player began looking at the players around them, wondering if the person next to them was a beta-tester. This infuriated Lelouch, the fact that people would start questioning the friendships they've built so easily made him do so. His former best friend, betrayed him time and time again, but he still refused to stop calling him friend.

"Come on out beta-testers! We should make them apologize to us, then we should make them give up all our money and items they got!" Kibaou yelled, gaining cheers from many of the players in the front rows, "They can't expect the party to trust them when they can't trust us! Why should we?"

This all sounded so familiar to Lelouch, the unfairness that the spiky-haired bastard was displaying was just so nostalgic it amused him. The memories of being beaten up by Japanese children just because he was Britannian and the actions his countrymen had made that were completely out of his action. Many times they had taken the money he had won during chess matches that would go into feeding Nunally and himself. A low chuckle grew in his throat, which then turned into full-blown laughter. In such a dark tone, that it made everyone around him shiver in fear.

This served to draw everyone's attention towards the former emperor. Simply not caring, Lelouch stood from his marble seat, ceasing his laughter completely, and began making his way down towards the spiky-haired player.

Lelouch watched as the players around him tremble in fear, all startled by the thick atmosphere he had created around himself, coupled with the twisted smile he had dawned made it impossible to not do so. When he stood face to face with Kibaou, he frowned and narrowed his eyes in disgust at the spiky-haired man as he trembled.

"Who do you think you are?" Lelouch asked venomously, gaining a whimper from the orange-haired man, "You claim that the beta-testers abandoned the beginners, am I correct?"

Kibaou nodded at the question tentatively, still not believing the aura the relatively young looking teen had been giving off. With that, Lelouch pulled out a small leather handbook, on the cover saying, 'Starter's Handbook.'

"The item store gave this out for free. This is a guidebook, is it not? Did you not receive one?" Lelouch asked. Kibaou for the first time since his appearance from the crowd spoke, "Y-yeah I did, so what?"

"And who handed them out?" Lelouch continued, "The beta-testers! Everyone had equal access to the information. Even then two-thousand people have died and you're going to allow their memories go to vain because of some silly squabbling?"

Lelouch turned on a heel and faced the crowd of astonished on-lookers.

"None of you came here to argue and point fingers," he called to the other players, using the same town when he gave speeches as Zero, bringing his right arm near his chest and clenched it, "No we came here because we all want to fight the first boss and then come one step closer to ending this death game! We can not do it if we begin to turn on each other, no we shall do it together!"

When he spoke his last word, he unclenched his gloved fist and raised it high in the air, and at first there was complete silence. Then a player clapped, looking over to it, it turned out to be Kazuto. Then more joined in applause and then eventually everyone in the amphitheater began clapping at his impromptu speech, including Kibaou himself, who seemed to learn to keep his mouth shut. Turning to Diabel, who was also clapping, seeming genuinely impressed by the speech.

"Sir Diabel, if you would be so kind, please continue," Lelouch requested, bowing as a show of respect. The blue-haired knight nodded as the other players ceased their applause also.

"Okay, now lets get back to the meeting then," Diabel began, sounding slightly relieved that the conflict had ended, "For info on the boss, it's all in here, the latest issue of the guidebook you just heard about..."

The blue-haired knight continued to brief the others of Illfang as Kibaou and Lelouch returned to their respective seats quietly. Many players having looks of respect for the young raven-haired teen as he walked back up to his seat, knowing that not many people would have the balls to speak.

Lelouch took his seat between Kazuto and Asuna once again, catching a pair of small smiles on his two companions. Though he knew that Kazuto would start asking questions soon enough, probably when they were alone, but for now he kept silent.

"According to the book, the boss's name is Illfang the Kobold Lord. Also, he'll be surrounded by his minions, the Ruin Kobold Sentinels. Illfang carries an ax and a buckler. He has four health bars, and when the last one turns red, he switches to a curved sword type weapon called a Talwar. He can change his patterns of attack, too. That's it for the briefing.

As for the distribution of loot, money will be divided equally among everyone. The party that defeats the boss gets the EXP; and whoever gets an item, gets to keep it. Any objections?" Diabel began and after gaining no objections from the crowd of players, he continued, "Good! We leave tomorrow at ten in the morning! Meeting adjourned, people."

With that everyone began stood and began filing out of the amphitheater, all of them stealing glances over in Lelouch's direction, all probably silently wondering, _'Just who is that guy?' _

* * *

><p>A few hours had passed since the meeting and Lelouch was faced with the largest problem he had faced in awhile, trying to find something to do in the meantime. So he was forced to wander the streets of Starter City, looking for something to occupy his time until he felt tired enough to go to bed.<p>

The sleeping in SAO was very much like normal sleep; you would only sleep when you're mentally tired and then you'd wake up completely refreshed. They even put in a way for the players to yawn realistically, a player would yawn when they would boot up from the several hours of being completely inactive.

Unlike normal sleep, once a player fell asleep, they couldn't be woken up by any outside force. A sleeping player could only wake up when their minds decided to awaken once again. Fortunately if the player was in a safe zone, no damage could be taken from any outside force and PK'ers were extremely rare, though Lelouch was sure that they would begin popping up sooner or later.

The raven-haired teen continued to wander the streets of Starter City before a sign caught his eye. It was a smithy. He stood in the middle of the street looking over to the store, a random curiosity beginning to pull him towards the store.

Lelouch wondered what about the non-descript shop was so interesting, taking another double take on the relatively bland-looking building. His curiosity and boredom began to mix together making it almost impossible for him to stand their any longer. So he walked over to the main entrance of the stone-brick building and went inside.

**-Asuna POV-**

Asuna slipped her hood off of her head, allowing her long orange hair to cascade down her back.

"It's good to see you again Lisbeth," She told the brunette standing in front of her, cracking a small smile at her only friend in this death game. She and Lisbeth had met a week after being trapped in this accursed game.

Asuna had came to her to upgrade her weapon at the time, but she soon found herself coming back to the same shop over and over again. So it wasn't hard to see how she ended up befriending the brown-haired blacksmith. It only helped that Lisbeth had always carried a friendly demeanor that made Asuna trust her the moment they met, even when she really didn't want to make any friends here in SAO.

"You too Asuna," Lisbeth replied, "So what brings you to Starter City, I thought you were going out to the outer villages to grind some more."

"I was attending a meeting about the first floor boss, it seems that they found him," Asuna answered in a rather indifferent tone. "You don't sound too happy, I thought you wanted to get out of this game ASAP?" Lisbeth asked, tilting her head to the side questioningly.

"Yeah I do," Asuna answered, her gaze looking down at the floor boards of the shop. "So why so glum chum?" the brown-haired blacksmith asked curiously, which gained a loud sigh from Asuna.

There was one reason that Asuna felt this way, it was the two guys she had agreed to party with. It wasn't that she didn't like them, she actually found them to be decent people on first impression. Rather it was the fact that they seemed to know each other quite well and she was the stranger in the party so she didn't know if she could really trust them, especially the one who had spoken up against Kibaou and defended the beta-testers.

The raven-haired teen easily made everyone in the stadium tremble in fear with that almost sadistic laugh of his, but to top it all off, he some how ended up rallying the same people he had stabbed fear into. He was going to be someone to watch closely in the future, because it was now clear that he was going to have a part to play in at the end of this death game.

"Asuna..." Lisbeth called to her, waving her gloved hand a few inches in front of her face. Asuna blinked at her best friend, not realizing that she had spaced out for a few seconds.

"So are you going to tell me what's bothering you or not?" Lisbeth asked, noticing that she had escaped her trance-like state. Asuna opened her mouth to answer the question, but it was soon cut off by the entrance of the shop creaking open slowly.

Lisbeth immediately turned towards the door and told the player in a friendly manner, "Sorry but we're closed!"

Asuna peeked over the shoulder of the brown-haired blacksmith and towards the player who had interrupted their conversation. Once she caught sight of the person standing in the doorway, she retracted her head back behind Lisbeth.

_'You've got to be kidding me!'_ Asuna exclaimed inwardly, the person in the doorway being the same person she had just been thinking about. There was no way that it couldn't be him, there was no way a person could mistake him for someone else. The player in the doorway had the same raven-black hair and dark amethyst eyes, it just had to be him.

"Asuna?" he had called out to her, the voice verifying his identity, but it also made her wonder how he had learned her name. "Um, yeah it's me," Asuna replied tentatively, stepping out from behind Lisbeth which probably resembled a child who had been caught by their parents doing something naughty.

"Do you know him Asuna?" Lisbeth asked curiously, as she didn't know her to socialize with the anyone, much less the opposite sex. "We met during at the raiding party meeting for the first boss, we're partying together for the raid," her raven-haired party member answered for her.

Asuna nodded at the explanation in affirmation, now asking the question that had been bugging her since he had called her name out, "How is it that you know my name?"

The raven-haired teen blinked his amethyst eyes and then slammed his palm into his face before answering exasperatedly, "When you join a party their names and statuses appear underneath your own."

It was now Asuna's turn to blink as she glanced up to the right-hand corner of her HUD, seeing two smaller status bars underneath her own. The orange-haired clearer let out an embarrassed chuckle as she hadn't noticed the two new bars before. The two names in the bars read: Kirito and Lerouge.

"So I'm guessing you're Lerouge?" Asuna asked, now guessing her party member's name based upon his appearance. He didn't answer, letting an awkward silence fall onto them until a small smile cracked his pale features as he replied, "Good guess."

Asuna let an awkward smile reach her face, inwardly relieved that she hadn't guessed wrong, Lerouge not looking like someone you wanted to offend in any way, shape, or form.

"So what brings you here Mr. Lerouge? Were you looking for Asuna?" Lisbeth cut in curiously, before adding on excitedly, "Is it possible that you're here to arrange a date."

The statement had snapped the tension that had filled the room in half and then into quarters. A blush threatened to appear on Asuna, but the orange-haired cleared fought it down with every ounce she had.

Fortunately Lerouge shook his head and answered, "No, I was just wandering around outside and came in here to see if I could upgrade my weapon before tomorrow's boss fight."

_'That's a coincidence, I run into one of my party members, and then run into the other one not an hour later,' _Asuna suddenly realized, wondering what forsaken entity was in control here.

"Well I can upgrade your weapon for you if you like," Lisbeth offered almost immediately after Lerouge answered her question, "I don't want you going in there under prepared."

With that Lisbeth walked behind the counter of the smithy and next to the station where all transactions made by the blacksmith were made, an iron next to a fire pit. Lerouge followed close behind, everything of his walk exhibiting complete confidence.

Lisbeth opened the player-trade screen in which Lerouge placed the weapon he was upgrading into. When it closed, Lisbeth began the upgrading process which took less than a second. A screen popped up, simply saying congratulations, which meant that the upgrade was successful.

The trade screen opened once again between Lisbeth and Lerouge. This time Lerouge placed two-hundred Col into his side of the screen, Lisbeth putting his weapon into her slot, and the two pressed accept. With the press of their buttons, the transaction was finished.

"I didn't expect you to have something like this," Lisbeth told the raven-haired teen, Asuna's ears perking up at the statement. "Something like what?" Asuna asked curiously.

"Yes and no. Unlike most of the other male players in this game, I have no qualms with having the rapier class as my main job, though I do occasionally switch from rapiers to one-handed straight swords whenever the situation calls for it," Lerouge explained as he opened his inventory, probably to see the new stats of his weapon.

Since the inventory screens in SAO were transparent, Asuna was able to catch the name of the blade, Slash Point. The pink-haired teen's eyes widen at the name of the sword.

Slash Point was the strongest rapier class weapon on the floor. This was a piece of information that she had gotten from the death game's most reliable information broker, Argo the Rat, for two-hundred fifty col.

The broker also told her how to acquire the blade since it was her first time there, you would have to complete a gathering quest for a NPC blacksmith, but unfortunately the quest had a level requirement of eight. Unfortunately she was only level six at the time and a long ways from her current level of seven.

_'So what level is he then?' _Asuna asked herself, finding extremely the fact to be extremely odd. Not only did Lerouge use the same exact weapon class as herself and seemingly excelled at it, but it was a class labeled by most of the male players as 'girly'. As a result, male rapier uses were uncommon in SAO, even players that would switch from one weapon class to the other. Which also was another very rare thing to see.

Though the more she thought of it, Lerouge did have many very little in the ways of masculine features and was on the scrawny side, so it did make sense on a physical level for him to be drawn towards the rapier class.

"Though I don't know why you're all so surprised, it's just a sword," Lerouge added, closing his inventory screen, "Well thank you Ms..."

"Lisbeth," the brown-haired blacksmith finished for him. "Thank you again Ms. Lisbeth," Lerouge added, bowing slightly and began making his way towards the door. Though right before reaching the door, Lerouge looked over his right shoulder at Asuna, simply told her, "You should probably get whatever upgrades you can get, shouldn't take any chances out there, because a life is an awful thing to waste."

With that the raven-haired teen pushed the wooden door open and walked out into the candlelit streets of Starter City, the door slowly coming to a close behind him with a soft thud.

**-The Next Day-**

**(Lelouch POV)**

"Let's go over it again. Since we're the smallest party in the raiding party, we're going to keep the kobold sentinels off the rest of the party so that they can focus completely on Illfang," Kazuto explained their party's role in the raid to he and Asuna, who were lagging a few feet behind the messy-haired teen. Lelouch glanced over towards the crimson-cloaked girl, who seemed to keep in their own bubble.

This action was completely understandable. As unlikely as it sounded, some people just weren't as open as others, something that some players didn't seem to get. That's why some players chose to go about their business as solo players. It wasn't hard for either Lelouch to tell that she was a solo player and she didn't make it hard for him either.

"I know," Asuna replied simply, popping Lelouch out of his thoughts as he found himself once again losing himself in his own thoughts.

"I'll use a sword skill to knock the sentinels' weapons out of their hands and get out of the way. When I do, either one of you two switch and jump in," Kazuto explained. The plan, though simple, would be effective for the task at hand.

"What's the switch?" Asuna asked, this being a question frequently asked by solo players, as they rarely fought in parties. Though that was a fact that Kazuto hadn't seemed to realize yet, something that surprised Lelouch, as he found that the teen was an extremely intelligent individual and fully expected him to see that.

Kazuto turned around and faced the cloaked girl, asking curiously, "Okay level with me. Is this your first time you've being in a party?"

"Uh-huh," Asuna confirmed in a deadpan tone, making Kazuto sigh in exasperation. Lelouch let a small, amused smile creep onto his face, finding Asuna's constant deadpan tones to very important questions amusing. They even made him nostalgic, as he himself got the same treatment once, from his favorite little witch.

* * *

><p>Lelouch let out a relieved sigh when he saw the door to the first floor boss's room, his patience running thinner by the second as the whole damn party had to climb to the top of the damn tower to reach it.<p>

Diabel, who had taken point for the duration of the trek to the door, approached the door confidently. A few feet away from the door, he turned on a heel and addressed the raiding party, "Listen up everyone! I got one thing to say, lets win!"

Every party, except his own, cheered at Diabel's comment in unison. The blue-haired turned back to the door and pushed it open, revealing the location where the first floor boss would take place.

There, sitting on a giant throne, sat a gigantic crimson canine-humanoid, or kobold for short. The beast glanced at the raiding party, its eyes flashing red, signaling to the party that it had turned hostile. The once dark room suddenly illuminated as the giant canine stood from its throne and leaped towards the raiding party, letting out a ferocious howl and brandishing its gigantic ax as it landed.

Directly above the giant beast appeared the red marker that signified an enemy mob, directly under it was the name Illfang the Kobold Lord. In front of it, three kobold sentinels spawned, and together the glorified hounds charged at the party.

Lelouch gripped the rapier that hung from his side and unsheathed it, seeing as many others in the party had already drew their weapons.

"Commence attack!" Diabel ordered, pointing his sword at the beast. At the words Lelouch charged forwards with the rest of the party, the rest of squad F close behind him, every player uttering their own battle cries in determination.

Leading the charge was the spiky-haired bastard himself, using a sword skill on the sentinel that was leading the kobold charge. Even though he loathed the man, Lelouch did give Kibaou credit for his determination to be free of this game.

* * *

><p>A few moments later in the fight, the party had reorganized to what they had initially planned on doing, squads A, B, and C were tasked with fighting Illfang. Squads D, E, and F were in charge of keeping the sentinels off the main group.<p>

"Squads A and C, switch in!" Diabel continued to bark orders from the center of the party, "Here it comes Squad B block!"

Doing as told the squad had blocked the incoming slash from the lord of the kobolds with their own combined attack.

"Squad C, keep guarding a prepare to switch," Diabel instructed, once again doing once as told, "Everyone else, when you fall back, regroup and flank them!"

Diabel turned to the squads fighting off the sentinels, simply yelling out, "Squads D, E, and F keep those sentinels off us!"

"Roger," Lelouch heard Kazuto reply before rushing off towards the nearest sentinel. The sentinel immediately jumped into the air with the intention of bringing its hammer down in a vertical swing.

The attack was easily parried by Kazuto, giving Lelouch an opening to attack, something that he was about to do before being cut off by Asuna. The cloaked girl looked like nothing more than a crimson blur as she rushed forward, calling out the number of sentinels they had slain together, "Number three!"

Lelouch caught the blade of her rapier glow a faint blue, thrusting forward with such speed that he was barely able to track it. The former emperor was impressed by the shear speed the girl had, one that almost rivaled his own.

Glancing over towards Kazuto, he could tell that his brother felt the same way about her, but they shook themselves of their astonishment and targeted the next sentinel. Knocking the hammer out of another sentinel's hands with slant, it created the perfect opportunity for Lelouch to captialize.

Dashing forwards, he closed in on the beast before its feet could touch the ground, but that could also be attributed to the fact that he was pretty close to the beast. Though he quickly cast off those thoughts as he sent his rapier straight through one of the openings in the sentinel's helmet, gaining a massive crit on the beast.

As it exploded into blue pixels, both Lelouch and Kazuto's attention were grabbed by the first floor boss, its roar ripping through the boss room. Both brothers watched as the giant canine's last health bar went into the red, which meant that he was going to switch to his talwar. That he did as Illfang threw his ax and shield up into the air carelessly.

"I'll go!" Lelouch heard Diabel yell from the crowd of players standing in front of the almost defeated boss. Rushing through the crowd of onlookers, Diabel stood directly in front of Illfang and activated a sword skill. His sword beginning to glow a bright yellow as he waited for Illfang to draw his next weapon.

_'What the hell is he doing?' _Lelouch thought, ducking under the swing of a kobold sentinel as he did so, _'We were supposed to attack it together.'_

Almost as he were accepting Diabel's challenge, Illfang drew his gigantic weapon from its sheathe. Though the sword that was produced made Lelouch's eyes widen in shock, noticing that the blade that Illfang carried wasn't a talwar, it was a no-dachi.

_'Dammit I need to do something,' _Lelouch thought desperately, knocking away the sentinel that was attacking him and lunged towards Diabel. Kazuto seemed to have the same idea as they both began running towards the endangered Diabel.

"No, jump away as fast as you can!" the two of them yelled, a warning that came too late as Diabel already began charging at Illfang.

The kobold lord showed a previously unseen nimbleness and jumped to the ceiling, jumping from stone pillar to stone pillar before plunging directly onto Diabel. The attack had caused a large gash down the blue-haired knights chest area, but the kobold lord was far from done.

Illfang lunged forwards landing another direct slash on Diabel, sending him flying over the parties behind him.

"Diabel!" Kibaou yelled worriedly before Illfang jumped into a few feet from the spiky-haired man, roaring loudly. While this happened, Lelouch and Kazuto ran over to the injured Diabel.

Kazuto got to the downed knight's side first, kneeling down and held a full-heal elixir up to his mouth as his health declined rapidly, Kazuto asking in frustration, "Why did you try to do it alone?"

By this time Lelouch had reached Diabel, watching him reject the potion that was offered him, much to Kazuto's shock. Diabel looked over at Lelouch than Kazuto, weakly saying, "You two were beta-testers weren't you? You know what I was doing."

_'No, he couldn't have...' _Lelouch thought, eyes widening at the shock of the statement, _'He was after the last attack bonus, he died over a stupid rare item?' _

"You were after the last attack bonus rare item, so you were a beta-tester to?" Kazuto asked in a tone completely void of worry, probably to calm the knight in what were to be his last moments. As he said this, a weak smile was forced onto Diabel's face as he slowly began to glow a faint blue, replying weakly, "Please... defeat... the boss... for everyone."

With those words Diabel's body disappeared in an explosion of blue pixels in Kazuto's hands, a look of pure sadness on Kazuto's face. Seeing the look on Kazuto's face, Lelouch silently pitied him as seeing someone die for the first time is always a traumatizing experience, even if it was in a game. The person was still died, Diabel still died.

Lelouch hung his head in respect of his fallen comrade for a moment, an action that he had only done a few times during his time as either Zero or the Demon Emperor. In the short time he had known Diabel, he had to say that he was impressed by the blue-haired knight. Diabel was ready to lead a group of people into a place where they all could have been killed wasn't exactly a common trait among men, and now that man was dead.

_'I told myself at the start of this game that I would get everyone out alive, that I would make sure no one else would die if he had anything to do with it,' _Lelouch thought, hands clenching in disgust of himself, _''God dammit, get a hold of yourself, there's a fight still being waged. Now focus!' _

Lelouch was then shook from his thoughts by Kazuto, who had now stood from his crouching position. His adoptive brother looked over towards Illfang and then towards Lelouch, a determined look on his face, telling Lelouch his plan silently.

_'Diabel, you're sacrifice today will not be in vain, I'll make sure of that,' _Lelouch thought, raising his head to reveal an equally determined expression gracing his own face. Tightening the grip he had on his sword, he answered Kazuto's silent question, "I'm with you."

"I'll go too," Asuna added taking position to Kazuto's right. His messy-haired brother glanced over to Asuna, replying, "Thanks."

With that the trio shot towards Illfang, gaining the attention of the rest of the raiding party, all probably wondering if they were crazy.

"We'll handle him like we did the sentinels," Kazuto explained simply. "Got it," Asuna replied while Lelouch gave a nod of acceptance.

As they grew near, Illfang seemed to notice that they were charging him and placed his clawed hand on the blade of his no-dachi, making streams of white light erupt from his blade. In response, Kazuto placed his own hand onto his blade, activating his own sword skill.

Their blades hit smashed together with equal force, sending both flying backwards, Kazuto yelling out, "Switch!"

Prompting Asuna to charge in. As the cloaked girl activated a sword skill, Lelouch noticed that Illfang had recovered faster than anticipated and yelled out, "Asuna watch out!"

Asuna simply leaned out of the way of swing, the sword flying past her head and catching on her cloak, instantly vaporizing it to pixels. She didn't even falter as she simply activated the sword skill linear and shot forward, knocking Illfang backwards with ease, yelling out, "Switch!"

Lelouch wasted no time in shooting forwards with all the speed he could muster soon finding himself to be a few feet away from the still staggered Illfang. Lelouch pulled slash point back and placed his hand over the blade, activating the sword skill dual-shot.

Lelouch shot forwards as he released the sword skill, thrusting the tip of the sword into the belly of Illfang twice, the strikes so fast that it looked like it was only immense strike. The strikes were more than enough to knock the first floor boss of its feet and onto his back.

"Switch!" Lelouch called out as he jumped backwards taking his place next to Asuna, noticing the figure of Kazuto rushing by him. His adoptive brother placed his blade behind his back, meaning that he was activating the sword skill sonic leap.

Lelouch watched Kazuto leap a great distance into the air and then swung down towards Illfang. It seemed that he would hit his mark at first, but in another show of agility, Illfang sprang to his feet in less than an instant. Though it gave Kazuto enough time to attempt to block the incoming slash, which proved to be in vain.

Lelouch watched as his adoptive brother flew right at him and Asuna, neither having enough time to dodge the flying body of their party member as they were both in post move cool down phase. The impact of the hit was enough to send all of them sliding several feet away.

Lelouch forced himself back to his feet as Illfang began closing in on he and his party, preparing the take the full blunt of the attack, but thankfully the rest of the raiding party stepped in between him and the boss. A gigantic man with dark skin glanced over to him before engaging the boss and said, "We'll hold him off while you guys regroup!"

Lelouch nodded and watched the rest of the raiding parties attempt to hold off Illfang, an act that didn't last very long as the kobold lord spun his gigantic tail around, effectively sending the raiding part onto their backsides. Immediately after, Illfang jumped into the air and swung downwards, seeming to be aiming at man who had saved their skins earlier.

In the corner of his eye, Lelouch saw his adoptive brother clamber onto his feet and reactivate sonic leap. With a massive leap, Kazuto flew towards Illfang screaming, "I'll hit you first!"

Kazuto intercepted the attack of Illfang completely, landing a clean downward cut in the boss's shoulder, sending the kobold lord off course and into the ground behind the raiding party. Kazuto combat rolled and continued charging at Illfang, calling out to his two party members, "Come on guys, one last hit, all together."

"On it/Roger!" the two rapier users confirmed and began running with Kazuto towards Illfang, Asuna was on his right, Lelouch had taken his left.

Illfang immediately tried to swing at one of the three charging him, but it was completely nullified by a well executed parry by Kazuto. Clearing just enough room for Lelouch and Asuna to lunge forwards and hit with a pair of linears, the combined force of both the blows hitting made the boss stagger backwards a few feet. Finally Kazuto jumped into the air and landed a clean diagonal cut from Illfang's right shoulder to his left hip, effectively scoring a debilitating hit on the first floor boss.

Sensing an opening, Lelouch's predatory instincts suddenly kicked in, making him lunge forwards towards the kobold lord. Knowing that Illfang should be extremely close to being defeated, Lelouch activated the strongest sword skill he had in his possession, Quadruple Pain.

His rapier glowing once again, Lelouch jumped into the air and sent four lightning fast strikes into Illfang's chest, the last stab had actually managed to pierce through the thick skin of the kobold lord.

Lelouch's eyes widened in shock, hearing a loud, angry scream come from his left. His snapping over to that direction, he saw Kazuto rushing towards him. His sword trailing behind him, leaving a trail of blue light from where his sword met with Illfang's skin.

_'SHIT!' _Lelouch cursed, pulling his rapier from Illfang's chest and leaned back, causing him to fall backwards, landing on his back with a loud thud. Thankfully everyone seemed to busy watching Kazuto finishing off what was left of Illfang's health to notice his blunder.

Though Lelouch did have to admit that it was quite the spectacle, Kazuto ripping through the boss was quite the thing to see. When his adoptive brother's blade the kobold lord, Illfang was sent flying, streams of blue light coming from the open wounds left by their attacks.

Lelouch's eyes, for the first time in their entire battle against the battle, fell on Illfang's health bars. A small smile of satisfaction came to his lips as he watched the colored bar reduce to nothing. Then the boss exploded into a flurry of blue pixels, Lelouch's smile turning into a frown as the other raiding parties began cheering.

The memory of Diabel reaching the same fate invaded his mind, turning any happiness he felt about beating the boss into the emptiness. There was no real cause for celebration today. They beat their enemy today, but what's beating an enemy when a good man dies in the process?

"Hey Lerouge, are you alright?" Asuna asked from out of nowhere, pulling him away from his thoughts. "No, I'm not," Lelouch muttered soft enough that no one would be able to hear it, stabbing his rapier into the ground and pushed himself off the ground, glancing at the orange-haired girl standing next to him saying, "Come on, we have a hero to congratulate."

Lelouch walked over to his kneeling brother, finding that he bore a troubled look on his face, probably feeling the same way he felt about today's victory. Asuna was the first one to speak, "Nice job."

Lelouch wanted to say something to reassure Kazuto, but even with being in close proximity with him for the past month, he still didn't feel comfortable enough to attempt such a thing. So he decided to allow Kazuto to sift through his own emotions, knowing from experience that it was the best way to overcome things like this.

"That was fine swordsmanship out there," the voice of the dark-skinned man from earlier said, Lelouch hadn't noticed him being too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice, "Today's victory belongs to you."

"No," Kazuto muttered in response, shaking his head in anger. Clearly he felt guilty about receiving the praise that was given him, who would when it came with the fact that their leader had died in the process. Yet more cheers rose from the other clearers, all to caught up with the rush of victory to realize that what they had lost.

"All of you stop cheering!" Lelouch heard Kibaou's voice arise from the crowd, gaining everyone's attention, "Why'd you do it huh? Why'd you let Diabel die?"

"Let him die?" Kazuto replied completely dumbfounded by the statement. Lelouch narrowed his eyes at the spiky-haired man accusing his adoptive brother, thinking angrily, _'What the hell is he doing, everyone believed that Illfang was going to pull out a talwar, so why is he pointing fingers?' _

"That's what I said. Admit it, you knew about the technique the boss was going to use," Kibaou continued, hell bent on pointing the blame on him, "You could've told us, then Diabel would've stood a chance. He wouldn't of died!"

"I know why he knew, he used to be a beta-tester!" added another player from the growing crowd, "Think about it! He knew about the boss's attack patterns! He knew but it kept it from us! And I bet that the other guy in his party is one too, the one with those purple eyes, why else would he have so readily defended them yesterday!"

_'Dammit, if things keep going on like this...' _Lelouch thought, formulating a way to get their attention away from beta-testers before they became the bane of SAO and focus all of their focus onto to something else, something in which all of their hate could be focused on. Then it dawned on him, he knew what needed to be done.

Lelouch glanced down at Kazuto and by the look on his face, he seemed to be thinking the same thing he was. Walking over to his adoptive brother, Lelouch knelt down next to Kazuto and placed a hand on his shoulder, whispering into his ear, "If you're serious about doing this, we do this together."

"Everyone suspects me right now, if I do this I can get all of their suspicion off of you and onto-" Kazuto began arguing before Lelouch cut him off in mid-sentence. "No one should shoulder all the hate alone," Lelouch countered, obviously referring to himself and the zero requiem. Still the sentence proved effective in its purpose, shutting his adoptive brother up so he could feign kindness by adding, "Plus, what kind of brother would I be if let my brother throw himself to the wolves?"

Kazuto blinked at his argument and seemed to realize that he wasn't going to take no for an answer, so he nodded, smiled, and replied, "On three do that laugh you did yesterday at the amphitheater. One... two... three."

While they counted Lelouch could hear someone trying to defuse the situation, which was a lost cause before it even started. When someone is completely set on something, not many things can steer them off that same course, they needed to be shoved off completely.

Lelouch let a dark chuckle rise in his throat and hearing this, Kazuto began following his lead and began chuckling. After that, their two minds seemed to connect at this moment as their laughter began rising in intensity as the seconds passed in complete unison. The two stood up from the ground they were kneeling on and once they saw everyone's attention focused directly on them, they ceased all of their laughing.

Everyone around them seemed to be completely petrified and even Kibaou, who had begun all of this, seemed to regret doing so. A malice filled smirk crept onto his face as he saw Kibaou's shaking, happy that he was able to get the opportunity to push his buttons once again.

"So you guys think that I used to be a beta-tester, eh?" Kazuto asked indignantly, "It's not cool to compare someone like us to those noobs."

"What'd you say?" Kibaou stuttered, shaking from either anger or fear, but Lelouch greatly suspected the latter.

"You heard him. Most of the thousand people in SAO's beta were complete rookies. They were so green that most didn't even know how to level up properly," Lelouch chimed in, voice still laced with amusement, "Hell, even you fools are thousands of times better than those guys."

"But we are nothing like those noobs," Kazuto followed, mimicking his own tone perfectly, "During the beta, we made it to the floors that no other beta-tester could even imagine."

"So what if we knew about Illfang's attack pattern," the raven-haired teen scoffed, "It's only because we've faced monsters that makes Illfang look like a frenzy boar."

"And we know much more than that, much more than any information broker," his adoptive brother finished confidently, every player around them looking as if they were going to faint.

"If that's true, then you guys are worse then beta-testers," Kibaou exclaimed in his bewilderment, looking as if his head was going to explode from all the anger that was coursing through his veins, "You're goddamn cheaters, that what you two are!"

"You're beta-testers and cheaters, you're beaters!" a random player yelled from the crowd, soon enough every player began chanting that same phrase at them venomously, trying to get under their skins. Lelouch noticed that two players in particular had refrained from doing the same as the others. Asuna and the giant man from earlier, looks of understanding on their faces, probably able to see what they had meant to do. Still even with all of those players sending their hate towards them, they stood strong, not even flinching at their curses.

"Beater, eh?" Lelouch repeated indifferently before smirking darkly and adding, "I like it."

"Yeah, it has a nice ring to it doesn't it?" Kazuto asked him casually, making it sound like they had been talking about the weather this whole time, "You can call us that. Just make sure you don't confuse us with those beta-testers again."

With that, they began walking towards the entrance at the other end of the boss room, the one that would lead to the newly unlocked second floor. Not sparing a second glance at the mass of petrified players they had left behind.

Lelouch climbed up the four concrete steps leading to the gigantic door leading to the next floor, reaching out to open it when he heard Asuna yell from behind him, "Wait!"

The former emperor turned to the orange-haired girl, Kazuto doing the same thing next to him, both waiting for the girl to say something.

"You're name is Kirito right?" Asuna asked, gaining an affirmative nod from Kazuto as she continued, "Well goodbye, Kirito, Lerouge."

"Bye," Lelouch stated simply before opening up his menu and pressed the disband party option, pressing accept when the option came up. "Word of advice, you can become really powerful on your own, but when the time comes when a guild asks you to join, accept," Kazuto explained rather indifferently, "Because you can only do so much on your own."

Lelouch took this as a cue to push open the giant concrete doors in front of him and walked through them, Kazuto following close behind. Just before entering the second floor, Lelouch heard Asuna say to them, "I'll keep that in mind."

**-End-**

Well that's a wrap folks. Do you like how I did this chapter or did you think I should burn in hell for all the changes I made. Either way, thanks for reading and I hoped you enjoyed.

Thank and PEACE OUT!


	3. Chapter 2: Dealing with Disappointment

Hey guys and welcome to chapter 3 of Complete Immersion. Thanks once again for the support on last chapter as I was not entirely sure that I should start this fanfic with all of the other stories I have to do, but your support always helps.

Just in case some of you didn't already know, Sword Art Online 2 is coming out in July. Are you all as excited as I am? Of course you are, why else would you be reading a Sword Art Online crossover if you didn't like Sword Art Online?

Anyway I need to answer some major questions you have about this story, this is going to follow a good amount of the anime, but mostly the important stuff. A lot of the filler stuff with Kazuto bonding with the girls is probably not going to make any appearances in the fic and will be replaced with Lelouch and his own **individual**experiences in SAO. I'm going to put in things that only **Lelouch** will experience **without** his brother from another mother, literally.

Also to once again address the fact that Lelouch is so good with a sword in this story and I hope to explain it further to you guys. He has had some prior training with a sword in his prior life and I'm also going to state that Lelouch should be more OP than you guys make him out to be.

As many of you know SAO doesn't require much in the physical sense and is much more mental, you just need to know how to perform the action you're doing. Lelouch may not have a lot in that sense, but what he does have is a quick reaction time and prior training with swordplay. If one adds the fact that he is one of the fastest thinking people in the world, which equate to him a being better than most of the players of SAO from the beginning.

Barring that last outburst, I'm going to thank you guys once again for making this easily the third most successful story on my profile and I'm more than sure that's it going to overcome Code Geass: The Assassin's Creed in those terms with this chapter, if not already.

Also shout out to Zehel2010 for being the hundredth follower of this story. Thanks to all of you for hitting triple digits in the followers category, which is a huge accomplishment, so thank you all.

I just fixed the dialogue, which you guys were pointing out to me. Thanks, for I didn't know that was an actual 'rule' of English writing. Sorry once again!

So I'm going to respond to some of the reviews from last chapter... right... about... now!

**Reanmeih: Thanks for that support and to answer the question you asked at the end of your review. Lelouch chose to go solo because the situation dictated it for the time being. At this point, guilds won't exist for a good while and only for the people with a lot of col. Lelouch leading a guild isn't out of the question. **

**Moving onto your other question about Lelouch suddenly being so proficient in sword play. The answer is that Lelouch does have some training in swordsmanship in general because he studied under Todoh before the Britannians attacked Japan, which basically covers the basics only. In the sword skill department, he has had a month to master the skills he had and Lelouch has always been one to adjust quickly so that always helps. **

**Lioncousin: I would of tried looking for something more unique, but like you stated Lelouch just screams rapier. Also about the pairings that I have planned, I don't want to spoil it for you guys, so unfortunately you're going to have to wait until then. **

**MM Browsing: I'm not going to give away too much information about Lelouch's future skills, so you're just going to have to wait on that.**

**Demosthenes2211: Thanks, I'll be sure to take this into consideration, but I'm going to assure you that I'm more than willing to change the story of SAO to account for Lelouch. **

**Orchamus: Thanks for the support and unfortunately, he will not be getting a black coat. Though I do have quite the nickname for the duo later on. **

**Guest from March 4: I can see where you're coming from by calling me a "hard-lined writer" and I have to agree with you that I'm one of those guys. But saying that I'm not open to critics isn't true at all, I'm always open to people hating on my story. In the end, all the hates doing is giving me more power in the afterlife. AHAHAHAHAHAHA! No seriously, I'm open to all forms of criticism. **

Well I think you've had enough with the chitter chatter. How about we roll this sucker!?

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I don't own Code Geass or Sword Art Online.

**-Chapter 2: Dealing with Disappointment-**

_'Where the hell is that girl!' _Lelouch thought impatiently, tapping his foot up and down as he waited for the infamous Argo the Rat, the game's most infamous information broker. She got this title by being the most reliable, but most expensive information broker in SAO, bar none. Even then, he had better things than waiting for her to show up.

_'The only thing I asked for was a simple meeting, but she keeps me waiting for three straight hours, again!' _Lelouch continued fuming silently, giving up on the idea that she was going to show up, _'I mean I trek all the way back down to level two so that it wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience for her, and what do I get, waiting out here in the rain for three freaking hours!'_

Lelouch stood from the bench he was sitting on and cracked his neck, wondering to himself why in the hell he hadn't given up after the first hour of waiting. Argo had always proven to be more trouble than the information was worth.

Lelouch could only compare the girl to one person in his life and that was Milly Ashford. The only difference between the two was that Milly pretty much had complete control of literally every students school lives as the grand daughter of the principal and student body president. She even resorted to putting a bounty on his head for reasons unknown to him.

The raven-haired teen let out a loud sigh, allowing himself to divulge his mind with the good memories of his prior life. When he found that those memories were leading to one of the more tragic moments of his life, he quickly expelled them from his mind, not wanting to have an emotional break down in the middle of the street. Still the mere thought of it made his body feel as heavy as lead, forcing him to sit back down on the frost covered bench behind him.

_'Why do I even attempt trying to remember the good memories, all of them just seem to lead me on the same path, the path to the bad memories,' _Lelouch berating himself angrily, wondering why he expected that the stream of good memories to stay on the good ones only, _'I guess that's one of the drawbacks of having a second chance, you only get more time to dwell on your past mistakes.' _

Lelouch ran a gloved hand through his hair and let out another sigh, this time sounding tired instead of irritated, which was expected the way given the he was feeling at that moment. He didn't move from the bench after that, finding that he needed some time to recollect himself. Doing this, he found himself remembering the past few months and the events that took place.

It had been several months since Kazuto and he had successfully executed what they called the 'beater stunt' in early January or Month of the New Year. As the SAO calendar replaced every real life month with a name that directly corresponds to it.

Five months have passed since then and as the days spent being stuck in SAO grew, so did his level. During the 'beater stunt' he was level nine and over the span of nine months he had grown forty levels, which much higher than the average level of twenty-five.

There were many reasons on how he was able to level up faster than many of the other players, but Lelouch had attributed it to three major reasons: firstly, he and Kazuto knew the best places to get experience from during the first ten levels; secondly, one could rarely find a day where he hadn't spent at least four hours grinding; and finally he was a solo player and never had to share experience as with party members.

Though it wasn't like he didn't want to join parties from time to time, but the reputation he had received after the 'beater stunt' had prevented him from seeking out other players as much. The same thing went for Kazuto, but since they hadn't given away their avatar names, which meant that they could converse regularly with other players. Though by getting close to another player came the risk that the said player would learn of their beater label and if it happened outside the safe-zone like the towns, it will most likely lead to yet another life being taken by the world of Aincard.

So that being said, it was safe to say that Lelouch would be refraining from joining any guilds or parties any time soon. However he did sometimes party with Kazuto from time to time, but never for that long as they decided after the 'beater stunt' to stop traveling with each other for now, as they knew having one beater in close proximity was bad enough for most players. Having two would probably lead to another situation entirely, so they decided to travel alone for the time being.

Not counting the times where they would party together to take down some stupidly difficult mob, he and Kazuto usually took a day out of the each week to meet with each other. Their meetings usually consisted of a brief retelling of their past week over a family dinner for two and whatever happened after that. Though Kazuto had more luck on the social department as he joined a guild called the Moonlit Black Cats after saving them from near defeat in April. Which also gave Lelouch time to gain a few levels on him as he spent most of his days helping the Black Cats level up.

Over the months Lelouch found his relationship with Kazuto strengthening as he continued to share time with him, even with how limited it had become as of late. Unlike his former best friend, he found the conversations he had with Kazuto to be twenty times more enjoyable than his talks with Suzaku, which many times ended with arguments about politics and philosophy by the end of their friendship.

The next big event was what was and is continued to be called the 25th floor incident by most players. In early February, the clearing group known as Aincard Liberation Squad, had broken through to level twenty-five. Unfortunately when players entered the level, no one knew of the exceedingly more difficult mobs than the level prior and the labyrinth like layout of the level that was covered with booby traps and pitfalls.

Even after that the Aincard Liberation Squad had decided to take on the level's boss, when Kibaou, their leader, was fed faulty information by an unknown information broker that the boss was relatively easy. So believing that they were facing a weak enemy, Kibaou, their leader at that time, had went in with only forty players, far under the amount of players needed to classify as a raiding party.

What actually stood behind the doors of the boss room was the exact opposite and were completely decimated by the boss, ending with half of the players dead, but the boss was still defeated thanks to the timely arrival of the main force. ALS soon merged with a group of players known as MMO Today, forming the Aincard Liberation Force or the Army for short.

Even with the decimation of the ALS, most guilds in general had many causalities due to the twenty-fifth floor. Even with the most player deaths on a single floor since the first days of the SAO incident, the clearing effort didn't waver an inch. In the last few months the clearer groups had cleared more than fifty floors and many people have predicted to be free of SAO sometime in the next year.

These predictions had gotten a good amount of players interested in fighting on the front lines, but unfortunately most players had decided to go about with their daily lives. Some too scared too fight, some too low of a level, and some had already put too much time in their current endeavor that they believed that they wouldn't make too much of a difference. Still Lelouch hoped that some would change their minds as he knew that every soul, no matter how insignificant, always contributes to the end result.

_'What a difference a year makes,' _Lelouch thought as a small self-berating smile crept onto his face, _'One year I was more than ready to throw the lives of the innocent to accomplish my own goals, dragging so many lives into a war they wanted no part of. Now I'm hoping that every people join the fight willingly, strange how life works sometimes.' _

Then Lelouch noticed something flashing at the top of his HUD. Glancing up at it, he found a white envelope was blinking on and off repeatedly. The raven-haired teen blinked at the blinking box owlishly, wondering who in the world of Aincard had sent him a message. Opening his personal menu, he navigated to his personal message in-box and found the lone message sitting in the box addressed from one Kirito.

"Kirito, wonder what he wants?"Lelouch thought, his finger drawing close to the open button before retracting it back, muttering, "I shouldn't open this out in the open, never know who's lurking in the shadows..."

"...Isn't that right Argo?" Lelouch called out, waiting a few seconds, looking for any signs of movement. Finally, Argo emerged from the bushes next to his bench, a large pout spread across her face.

"I'm disappointed Lerouge," Argo stated, her voice harboring a tone of mock disappointment, "From someone as attentive as you, I expected you to call me out earlier."

"That could of been the case," Lelouch replied indifferently as Argo took a seat next to him, glancing over to her with a wryly smirk, "Or it might not be."

"No you definitely didn't notice me until just now," Argo countered indignantly before explaining her reasoning, "Your hand slightly twitched while you were reaching to close your menu."

"Always the sharp one," Lelouch stated while leaning back in his seat, shivering slightly when his back touched the cold wood, "So are you going to tell me why you were watching me from the bushes or am I going to have to pay for it again?"

"Hey it's not like you haven't been watched from afar by a girl before right?" Argo asked, a cheeky grin spread across what was visible of the hooded girl's face.

"Yeah I have, but at least those girls had the courtesy to watch me from where I could see them," Lelouch answered glancing up at the sky, tone shifting to one of suspicion, "So what's the real reason?"

"Oh come on Lerouge, is it so hard to believe that I was watching you because I'm simply attracted to you?" Argo asked defensively, clearly not making much effort to keep her lie afloat.

"Argo for the few months that I've known you, not once have you showed any signs of being attracted to me," Lelouch retorted indignantly.

"I can only tell you if you're willing to give up a thousand col," Argo stated.

"The reason I contacted you in the first place was to buy some information off you, so what makes you think I wasn't willing?" Lelouch replied irritably, rubbing his temple trying to quell a budding headache.

"Information," Argo stated casually, as if watching someone from the bushes wasn't anything out of the ordinary for her.

"What information exactly, don't you know enough about me already?" Lelouch pressed, sensing something happening just underneath the surface.

"Well I do know more than that's entirely healthy," Argo agreed, "but as it turns out, some players are willing to shed a good amount of their hard-earned col to get more than just the information your willing to give out for free."

"I don't give up any information," Lelouch countered, making his confusion clear in his voice.

"Most of that information stems from our past encounters, as you know, but the problem is that it isn't enough for some people," the information broker explained in an uncommon formal tone.

"What exactly do you know about me?" Lelouch asked, making sure that he sounded exactly like he was wondering how much information she had on him.

"I know that you're screen name is Lerouge, your general description, and that you have a good amount of col to burn," Argo answered, sounding some what frustrated at how little information she had on him.

"You sound frustrated," Lelouch stated with a small amount of amusement, even though he just stating the obvious before moving on to the next topic of conversation, "So tell me about these players you mentioned earlier, the ones who are willing to spend so much col to get information on me."

"Many of them are just high-ranking guild members wanting to recruit you," Argo replied, before grinning widely, "but there were a few interesting characters that you should look out for, I'll tell you their screen names for a thousand col each."

"Give me the two you found most interesting, I can't afford the spend the any more of my col at the moment," Lelouch stated, which was actually true, planning on spending the rest of his col to rent a good room at an inn and few weapon upgrades.

"Well if you want my honest opinion the ones you should concern yourself with immediately is the leader of the KOB, he's been offering rewards for some information about you," Argo explained, "The second person I suggest you look into is a female player named Sachi."

"What exactly makes her so interesting?" Lelouch asked curiously, naturally wondering who this 'Sachi' girl was looking for him.

"It may have something to do with that message you got from Ki-bou," Argo explained vaguely.

"That all you know?" Lelouch asked, extremely confused by the vague answer given to him.

"You should go ask Kirito these questions, I'd think you'd get more answer from him then me," Argo answered in an unusually stern tone. Taken aback by the sudden shift in her tone, Lelouch could only nod in response.

_'I've never seen her this serious before, whatever this is it must be really important,' _Lelouch thought and immediately picked himself of the bench, opening a trade screen between Argo and himself. The raven-haired teen placed a total of three-thousand col, one for each answer he was given and pressed accept without saying a word.

He then began walking away from the hooded information broker, stopping when he heard Argo ask from the bench, "Don't you want to know the answers to the questions you dragged me out here to ask?"

"Maybe I already did," Lelouch called back, allowing a wryly grin spread across his face at the dumbfounded expression spread across Argo's face. The former emperor waved a goodbye at the hooded information broker and made his way to the best inn on the floor.

After paying the NPC in charge of the inn the usual cost for staying the night, Lelouch made his way to the room he was given and unequipped himself of the violet greatcoat called the sleeves of amethyst and the armor chest plate he kept tucked underneath the greatcoat, leaving him standing in the same long-sleeved violet shirt that he wore since the beginning of the SAO incident.

Going from his inventory to his message inbox, Lelouch sat onto his bed and opened the message from his adoptive brother, reading it silently in the dark: _I need to speak with you, meet me on the Wolf Plains on Floor 28 at midnight- Kirito._

Lelouch blinked at the short message, although he really didn't expect anything spectacular from Kazuto, who didn't say too much any ways. Though he never expected so vague to come from his adoptive brother, nonetheless Lelouch decided to reply: _Sure, I'll meet you there._

Seeing that he still had a few more hours to kill before midnight, Lelouch decided to lay his head down onto the slightly lumpy pillow and himself drift into the silent bliss of sleep.

* * *

><p>Lelouch strolled casually along the path to Wolf Plains, the time soon approaching midnight. Lelouch suddenly unsheathed his rapier and side-stepped an attempted pounce of a nearby pup before impaling the wolf-like beast through with his rapier.<p>

_'If that was a pup, I must be in Wolf Plains,' _Lelouch noted before wondering, _'So where is Kazuto?' _

Almost immediately after Lelouch heard footsteps approaching from behind him, turning around he found none other than Kazuto himself walking over to him, a rather crestfallen expression spread across his face.

"Well the Black Swordsman finally makes his appearance," Lelouch called out to him in fake cheerfulness as he sheathed his rapier, hoping to rouse Kazuto from whatever sadness he felt.

Something that proved to be effective as a small smile replaced the frown on his adoptive brother's face as he called back, "Hello to you too Lerouge."

"So what did you want to discuss with me about?" Lelouch asked curiously, quickly shifting back to his usual stoic demeanor.

Although Kazuto was slightly surprised by the sudden change in demeanor, he was still able to answer, "I need your help."

"I was able to gather as much from your message, so what is that you need help with exactly?" Lelouch added.

Finally able to gather his wits about him, Kazuto then explain his situation fully, "The Black Cats and I are planning on making a run through the labyrinth through Floor 27 for some Col to buy a function for our new base and even though I'm sure that nothing too bad will happen, but I don't want to take too many chances with all the booby traps-"

Kazuto's sentence was cut short by a low growling, both of their heads snapped towards the direction the growling had originated from, eyes widening at the creator of the noise. There standing on a nearby hill was a pack of pups, about six in total, all preparing themselves to pounce on pair of brothers.

"You want me to come with you through the labyrinth to make sure that no one triggers any of the traps and if they do, to make sure that everyone lives through it, does that sum it up?" Lelouch asked, summing up what he predicted Kazuto to say before being interrupted.

"Yeah that's about it," Kazuto replied in affirmation, pulling his sword from the sheathe on his back and quickly turned his back to Lelouch, sword held out towards the pups in front of him.

"I'll be sure to give you my answer when we're done with these pups," the raven-haired teen explained before turning around to the hostile canines while unsheathing his rapier.

"Alright so how do we doing this?" Kazuto asked calmly before suggesting, "I take three and you take three?"

"That sounds good, we do this on three," Lelouch stated, sharing his adoptive brother's mindset.

"Roger that," Kazuto replied, readying himself to charge forward and attack the three pups in front of him. Seeing this, Lelouch began the countdown, "One... two... three!"

Doing as they had agreed, the two brothers shot forwards simultaneously, letting loose thundering battle cries as they did so. Lelouch, being the faster of the two, was the first to reach his adversaries.

Lelouch wasn't the slightest surprised when the pups suddenly pounced at him, though he couldn't help but notice how they seemed to anticipate the charge. Even with all three of the pups bearing down on him, the raven-haired teen simply balled his fist and sent a left hook straight into the snout of the pup in front of him, sending said pup careening directly into the pup to its left. Sending the both of them into the ground, rolling a few feet before coming to a stop. The former emperor then turned his sights on the pup coming in from his left, sending an upward slash its way, cutting the crimson canine in half completely, causing it to explode into blue pixels in a glorious instant kill.

Lelouch's attention was returned to the two pups picking themselves off the ground, a small predatory smirk crept onto his face as he saw the pups in a helpless position before dashing towards them. Only one of the pups were able to get back to its paws, making it his target. Before the pup could pounce on him, he stabbed the tip of his rapier into the neck of the pup, dropping its health to nothing instantly.

Lelouch's eyes widened when he heard something from behind him, knowing that Kazuto should have been several feet away from him, it didn't take much to figure out what exactly was behind him. Flipping the rapier in his hands so that it was in the underhand position, Lelouch spun around quickly and stabbed the tip of his rapier into the of the three pups he was sent to fight, killing it instantly because of the sword's high base damage.

_'Well that was easy enough,' _Lelouch thought, once again putting his sword back into its sheathe as he glanced over towards Kazuto, who was still fighting off the rest of the pups assigned to him. He took this moment reprieve to think about his brother's proposal, wondering why Kazuto had felt like he needed his help to guide his guild through a simple labyrinth in the first place, _'Maybe that Sachi woman has something to do with this and now that I think about it, I remember there being a Sachi in that guild of his, but what exactly is her role in all of this?' _

Before he could finish the thought, a loud, high pitched whimper refocused his attention back onto reality. Looking back up towards Kazuto, he found that his brother was just now finishing off the last of the pups that he was fighting and promptly walked over to him.

Just as he reached his brother, Kazuto side-stepped a pounce and slashed down onto the exposed mid-section of the last pup, cutting it clean in half. Lelouch being so close to the action and the inevitable explosion of blue pixels, the results of which blew straight into Lelouch's unflinching face (A/N: It sounds wrong, I know, don't be immature).

"Well that's that," Lelouch stated, letting out a loud exasperated sigh before returning himself to his usual serious demeanor. Kazuto looked up at him and blinked owlishly, seeming to have just realized that he was standing there.

"So about my offer earlier... are you in or out?" Kazuto asked curiously.

"Before I answer, can I ask you a couple of questions?" Lelouch inquired, catching his brother off-guard slightly before nodding.

"Do you happen to know a girl named Sachi?" Lelouch asked, the question making his brother's eyes widen in shock for a second.

"Y-yeah, she's a member of the Black Cats," Kazuto replied as he regained his composure, "Why do you ask?"

"I talked to Argo earlier today and she told me something quite interesting," Lelouch stated looking off towards his right before looking back to Kazuto, "She told me that Sachi was paying her for information on me, so do you happen to know why?"

"No, I don't even know how she knows about you, much less know your screen name," Kazuto replied, narrowing his eyes suddenly.

"I thought you would know since you are in the same guild as one an other," Lelouch stated, baiting his brother with a hint of fake frustration.

"Come on Lerouge, you seriously don't think that I'm stupid enough to fall for that," Kazuto countered, Lelouch sensing a growing frustration in his voice as his brother caught onto his baiting almost immediately.

"Fall for what exactly?" Lelouch asked defensively, trying to sound as if he was insulted.

"That stupid act you pull to get people to give you information without them noticing, you bait people in with whatever emotion is counter-intuitive to the situation and for some reason, it always works," Kazuto explained, sounding rather frustrated.

"Something wrong, you sound rather frustrated," Lelouch replied, hoping to gain the information he needed by calling out the obvious frustration in his voice.

"That's because I am frustrated," Kazuto stated, letting out a loud exasperated sigh before running a hand through his messy black hair and continuing, "I just feel like I'm wasting my time with the Black Cats."

"I thought you were just going to stay with them until they're able to fend for themselves," Lelouch stated in a rather harsh tone, "Are they not meeting up with your expectations?"

"No that's not it..." Kazuto began before trailing off completely and contemplated how to continue in silence, "It's just that every moment I'm busy helping the cats, there could be someone close to dying themselves and I can't do anything about it because when I try to leave the cats... I just can't."

"Why is that exactly?" Lelouch asked, using a tone of curiosity and his usual cynicism, "I thought you were only going to stay with the guild until they proved they can fend for themselves. Is it because you've been around them for so long that they all actually imprinted on you or is all of this about a certain someone?"

"I really don't know," Kazuto stated disbelievingly, probably aimed at his inability to discern between the two.

"Well if you want my honest opinion on the matter, I think you better make up your mind on what's more important to you. The group as a whole or a that single person," Lelouch replied before adding on solemnly, "because whether you like it or not there times where you can't save everyone you care about, it's best to distinguish the people you want to alive and the people you won't mind losing to keep that person alive, because their nothing's worse than finding out you've lost all say in the matter."

Kazuto could only stare at Lelouch with a dumbfounded look on his face, the weight of Lelouch's words shaking him to the core. Kazuto didn't want to believe that his brother had just told him to do something so dark, but some where deep inside of him, he knew that Lelouch was right.

Lelouch suddenly turned on a heel and began walking away from his brother, shaking Kazuto out of his trance as the raven-haired teen asked, "So where and when am I meeting with you and the cats?"

Kazuto blinked at his brother once in astonishment before regaining his composure and replied, "The cats and I are staying at an inn on Floor 11 at the moment. I don't think any of them are actually sleeping yet, I could introduce you to a few of them now if you want."

"I think that's for the best, I'd rather not go into battle with some strangers I met a few hours beforehand," Lelouch stated before opening his inventory screen and selected one of his many teleport crystals, which soon materialized in his hand a second after, adding on, "I'll meet you at the Teleport gate on Floor 11."

"Sure thing," Kazuto replied, but as Lelouch opened his mouth to activate the crystal, his brother stopped him, "but one more thing. How do I figure out who I want alive and who I'm ready to sacrifice?"

"Deep down you already know," Lelouch stated stoically before saying to the crystal, "Teleport: 11th Floor, Taft."

Not a second later, a bright blue light enveloped Lelouch, immediately teleporting him to his desired location. Leaving Kazuto alone with his thoughts as he equipped an teleport crystal of his own. Though Kazuto could say that one thing was crystal clear, he knew exactly he wanted alive just not who he was willing to give up to keep them alive.

* * *

><p>"So here we are, the Moonlit Black Cats' current base of operations," Kazuto stated as they approached the front door of a non-descript taverninn on the side of main street.

"Some how I expected something... more," Lelouch replied, severely whelmed by the supposed base of his guild.

"Well it won't be our base for much longer," Kazuto stated sounding slightly defensive, "Like I said earlier, our leader is looking for a discount base in Starter City right now, so we won't be staying here any longer."

"Good to hear that you're moving up in this world," Lelouch stated before looking over to his brother, "So shall we head inside?"

"Oh yeah, I'll show you up to where we stay," Kazuto replied before entering the inn.

Lelouch followed close behind his brother as they entered the some what busy tavern. The raven-haired teen began identifying the highest leveled players in the tavern, which was a rather simple task as a player only needed to look at the equipment that a player wore to get an estimate on their level.

Of course there was always the chance that a player was wearing weaker armor to fool other players about their actual level, thus drawing any attention off of them. This was rarely a problem as many of the high-level players kept to the higher floors helping the clearing effort to be on this particular floor, so that wouldn't be too much of a problem.

Upon finishing his scan, Lelouch found that he was the highest-leveled player in the building, though it only served to make him wonder if the other players could see that as well. Thinking back on it, he did forget to unequip all of the equipment that were meant for the higher levels so it probably wouldn't be hard for any lurking pk'ers to notice that he had stuff worth stealing. Taking another look around, he found that everyone was much too busy with whatever they were doing beforehand to even notice him.

Kazuto lead him to a flight of wooden stairs that lead upstairs, which most likely lead to all of the rooms open for rent. Heading up the stairs, Lelouch then followed his brother to a pair of wooden doors which he assumed to be their destination. Kazuto unlocked the doors and entered the room beyond the door frame, gesturing for Lelouch to wait at the door.

Seeing that he had no other choice in the matter, Lelouch gave a simple nod as he watched his brother disappear past the door frame and into the room. He stood their in complete silence, waiting for his brother to return to the doorway and let him in.

Finally after a few minutes of standing in the same location in complete silence, Kazuto returned to the doorway, simply stating, "Alright you can come in now."

"Am I interrupting something?" Lelouch asked curiously, wondering why his brother had taken so long to alert his guild mates of his presence.

"Nothing much, they were just talking about tomorrow," Kazuto answered simply, "Come on inside, everyone's waiting for you in the main room."

Lelouch walked by his brother and into the hallway leading to what he guessed to be the main room, as he was immediately met with four expectant faces looking up at him, sitting around a table that was a few inches off the ground.

Three pairs of eyes consisted of a pair of closed eyes belonging to a light brown-haired teen; a pair of green eyes belonging to a teen with hair a few shades darker than the latter; the last were a pair of light blue eyes originating from a blonde-haired teen about the same age as the other two. The last pair of the four actually belonged to a black-haired female teen, who Lelouch guessed to be Sachi.

Immediately after the awkward greeting, four friendly smiles cracked onto all of their faces. Making Lelouch force down the smile that was tugging at his lips, seeing that the socially awkward act he had been deploying the past few weeks still worked.

_'That should be expected, the only people to ever see through it is Argo, Kazuto, and the players who were present for the first ever boss room clearing meeting,' _Lelouch thought, each having their own obvious reasons.

"Guys I would you like you all to meet Lerouge," Kazuto stated from behind Lelouch, startling him slightly, "He's an old friend of mine IRL."

"Good to meet all of you," Lelouch added, accompanied with a small bow.

"Nice to meet you too, the name's Ducker," the blonde-haired one replied cheerily.

"You can call me Tetsuo," the light brown-haired teen added.

"Hi there, my name is Sasamaru," the one with the darker shade of brown continued.

"S-Sachi," the lone female in the guild finished shyly, affirming his earlier thoughts.

_'She's the one who was snooping around for information on me?' _Lelouch asked himself as he gazed at the timid girl, _'She doesn't look like she could hurt a fly, wonder what makes her so special that Argo of all people had refused to give me any information on her.' _

"So what brings you here Lerouge? Are you planning on coming with us to Floor 27 tomorrow?" Sasamaru asked curiously causing the others around him to look at him with similar expressions.

Lelouch gave a simple nod in response as he snapped himself out of his thoughts, just barely remembering to keep the response simple as he felt like anything more would be too much.

"Well if you're coming with us, I think we should figure out how exactly we're going to use you," now being Tetsuo's turn to speak, "Sachi and Sasamaru are our damage dealers, Kirito and I are the forwards, and Ducker is our treasure hunter."

"So to determine your role in our party tomorrow, we're going to ask you some questions," Sasamaru added on at the end, causing a small smirk to creep onto his lips at the thought that popped to mind. "

Alright I can't argue with that logic, "Lelouch replied indifferently, sitting down next to the table in front of the other Black Cats, Kazuto choosing to sit down next to him.

"First of two questions, what's your preferred weapon class?" Tetsuo asked, everyone other than Kazuto now began staring at him expectantly.

"Mostly rapier, sometimes one-handed straight swords if the situation pertains to it," Lelouch answered simply causing all of the Black Cats', barring Kazuto, eyes to widen momentarily.

"Alright final question, so what's your level?" Tetsuo asked once again, the expectant looks returning to all of their faces.

"Thirty-nine," Lelouch lied, not wanting to tell them his actual level for two reasons.

The first being that the real number was an extremely high level for any player at this period of time and would probably get him labeled as a beater. The second reason was actually quite simple, since Kazuto didn't tell them his actual level, why should he.

"Thirty-nine!" Ducker yelped loudly, sounding like he had said a number in the mid-seventies. Still this probably meant that he was the highest level player the Black Cats have ever came into contact with. Something that didn't surprise him the slightest as this was the same case with many players he meets in SAO.

"Yeah that's the number I said, but why do you sound so surprised, surely you've met stronger players," Lelouch replied pleasantly, trying the affirm his earlier thought.

"No, most players in your level range are on the front lines, so we haven't met any," Sasamaru explained in an almost disappointed tone, "Now that I say that, why are you all the way down on Floor Eleven, shouldn't you be on some of the higher floors?"

"Actually on I was on Floor Two not too long ago speaking to Argo the Rat, when I got a message from Kazuto to meet up with him," Lelouch began before finishing, "We talked for a few moments before he persuaded me to accompany you guys."

"I wonder why Kirito didn't tell us about you before, there are so many things we could of done with someone of your level, just think of the progress we could of made with him. We could of became a front line guild by now," Ducker said in a whiny tone.

"I just figured that he wouldn't of had the time to help people like us," Kazuto replied rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Well whatever you thought you could of asked earlier, you know I'd rather help players get into a position where they help the clearing effort than anything I do on a daily basis," Lelouch stated before letting out an exasperated sigh, "Well it's encouraging to see some guilds are still inspiring to reach the front lines, I just hope there were more players who thought that way."

"It's actually nice to see that some of the clearers haven't completely forgotten about us lower leveled players completely," Tetsuo replied, sounding extremely relieved by Lelouch's earlier statement.

"Here in SAO, the strong will only get stronger and the weak will only get weaker," Lelouch stated somberly before letting a small nostalgic smile appearing on his face, his mind reverting to his time as Zero, a time where he turned a band of ragtag rebels into one of the strongest military forces in the world, "The way I see it whether it's in Aincard or real life, but from what I've seen, the people who thrive to become stronger, usually do."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence man," Ducker replied cheerily, making it clear that he got the message Lelouch was trying to send with the statement. Glancing around at the Black Cats, he found that they were reacting in a similar way.

"So was that was your last question, correct?" Lelouch inquired with a fake tiredness, finding himself to be rather irritated by the family-like atmosphere that the Black Cats continually radiated.

It wasn't he didn't enjoy the sight of friends close enough to consider each other family, but they only served to bring up memories of a group of friends he had in his life prior that acted much in the same way. He knew thinking about them would only serve to add upon the ever growing pile that was his guilt.

"Yeah, I guess so," Kazuto replied, sounding some what unsure of the answer as he looked around to his guild mates, seeing if they had any questions for him.

When they made no gesture saying otherwise, Lelouch stood from the table and stated respectively, "Then I'd like to take my leave for the night. Just have Kirito send me the information about when and where we're meeting tomorrow."

After saying this Lelouch swiftly made his way towards the exit, barely being able to hear the goodbyes of the Black Cats as he closed the double doors behind him.

* * *

><p>Lelouch continued to wander the nearly deserted streets of Taft, shoulders slumped and head hanging as he walked down the street on his unsteady feet. Giving him the appearance of a guilt-ridden drunk which was only half true.<p>

The raven-haired teen took a quick glance behind him to see a crimson-hooded player trailing him a few yards away and continued walking down the path that would inevitably lead him out of Taft, wondering how much longer the player was going to think that Lelouch hadn't noticed that he was being followed. The hooded player had been following him since he had left the tavern and Lelouch doubted that they were going to stop any time soon.

Lelouch knew that this person wasn't just a common thug who was planning to mug him for his col and items, no even someone like that should be smart enough to know that walking directly behind their target was a great way to get spotted, no this person was making sure that they were spotted. They didn't even bother to hide the green cursor indicating that hovered over their head.

_'They probably know that I'm drawing them away from town on purpose,' _Lelouch thought as he inched closer and closer to Taft's city limit, _'Looks like we're going to get up close and personal soon enough.' _

Lelouch crossed the boundary that separated Taft from the forests outside its walls, immediately immersing himself in pitch-black darkness of a moonless night. Walking blindly down the path in front of him, Lelouch opened his personal menu and navigated to his inventory and quickly equipped the rapier Blade of a Thousand Souls, an item that he had received from a particularly difficult quest line that had involved an NPC blacksmith and killing a lot of necromancers.

When the blade materialized on his waistline, Lelouch immediately stopped in his tracks and unsheathed the rapier. He didn't turn around to face the hooded figure nor did he look over his shoulder to see how close his stalker was to him, he just stood their completely still and called out to the figure, "Why exactly are you following me?"

No response came from behind him, the sounds of footsteps slowly approaching him was the only sound that came from behind Lelouch. Instinctively he tightened the grip he had on his blade, mentally preparing himself for any attack that came from the hooded-figure.

"Calm yourself Lerouge, I'm not looking for a fight," the hooded-figure replied, Lelouch's eyes widening slightly at the voice, recognizing the owner immediately.

"So are you going to tell me why I'm being followed by the second-in-command of the KOB," Lelouch asked as he turned around to face the orange-haired girl. Their eyes met the moment he had turned around and they stayed locked for several moments afterward, both waiting for the other to make a move.

Then after an unknown amount of time passed over them, Asuna finally spoke, "I was sent here by Heathcliff, he asked me to escort you to our base on the 29th Floor."

"Do you happen to know why he had to send his second-in-command all the way down to Eleventh Floor to act as my escort at such an ungodly hour?" Lelouch asked curiously, not seeing any reason to do such a thing.

"He wanted to send one of our lower-ranking members and wanted to know my opinion on who to send since you and I have interacted in the past," Asuna began explaining, "Knowing that it was very unlikely that any player in the range he suggested were going to find you, much less convince you to come to our base, I volunteered to come and find you."

"So now that you've found me, I'm curious to how exactly you're going to convince me to follow you," Lelouch stated curiously, gaining something that he didn't expect from the girl.

A single owlish blink and then a deadpan response, "I really don't know."

Lelouch pinched the bridge of his nose in his irritation as he wondered how one of the most serious people in SAO had actually managed to overlook something so vital. He would never say it out loud, but Asuna had accidentally put a dent in his pride. Something that he learned to expect when people were constantly bending over backwards to impress him during his days as Zero and the Demon Emperor. Taking that into account, he decided to take in a deep breath and calm himself before responding.

"Since you don't have anything to offer me at this moment, I don't think there's any more reason to further this conversation," Lelouch stated exasperatedly, not able to stop all of his earlier irritation from leaking into his voice.

Lelouch quickly equipped a teleport crystal and pointed it towards himself before Asuna could respond. Before telling the crystal his desired location, he looked up to the orange-haired girl and added onto his prior statement, "If you happen upon something that may interest me, you can find me at this location, teleport: 27th floor, Ronbaru."

Asuna seemed to just suddenly realize what was happening and opened her mouth to protest, by then the teleport sequence had already begun. Making it impossible for Lelouch to hear whatever she had said, but then again, it wasn't like he really cared.

**-Asuna POV-**

"Welcome back Asuna and by the lack of his presence, can I presume that you're mission went unsuccessful?" Heathcliff asked the orange-haired girl curiously, something in which she gave an affirmative nod to, prompting him to continue in a disappointed tone, "Can you explain to me why then?"

"Of course," Asuna replied before taking in a deep breath to mask her nervousness as she explained apologetically, "I was so focused on finding Lerouge that I neglected to find a way of convincing him to come."

"That was to be expected and I severely doubt that he would of accepted even if you had prepared to bargain with him," Heathcliff stated, replacing her earlier self-disappointment with confusion.

"You knew that he would reject the offer?" Asuna asked with a mix of curiosity and confusion.

"Tell me, barring the ones of his recent actions on the 51st floor, have you heard a single rumor about him at all?" Heathcliff asked rather seriously.

This had only served to further her confusion, but still she responded, "No, I haven't."

"It's because he doesn't like to shine the spotlight on himself without it being completely necessary, meaning that he doesn't want people to notice him," Heathcliff began, beginning to sound like a teacher lecturing one of their students, "Since we already know that he is a beater and an extremely intelligent player, we can assume two reasons for him not wanting to meet with me: the first being that he doesn't want any one to recognize him as a beater and attack him because of it; the second being that he believes we have nothing to offer him in terms of an incentive; the third being that it's both."

"Then how do you propose fix these problems then?" Asuna asked curiously, wondering if her leader had already figured out a way to convince Lerouge into coming to their base, since he had been able to explain their problem so clearly.

"I'm going to have to send someone to evaluate him further before I finalize anything," Heathcliff answered with a sigh, cupping his chin as if going into deep thought.

"Do you happen to have anyone in mind to go?" Asuna inquired after a few moments of rather awkward silence between the two.

"They're standing right in front of me," Heathcliff answered simply, the statement catching her off-guard as she was not expecting it, but before she could protest he cut her off, "I already know what you're going to say and the answer is no you don't have to worry about leading our forces on the front line, you can do this whenever you have a moment of peace, but only if you actually do so. It also may prove hard for us to illicit the information we need if I send someone he isn't already familiar with."

"Which hopefully doesn't take too long," Asuna grumbled before asking the necessary question in the situation, "What exactly do you want me to look for?"

"I want you to focus on three specific aspects: his general personality, his composure under stress, and his fighting style as a whole," Heathcliff explained, "Once you've gauged all three of these assets, come back here and I'll make my decision on the matter."

"Understood, I'll begin as soon as possible," Asuna replied simply and turned on a heel, making it so that she was facing directly away from her superior.

She found one thought coursing through her head as she made her way towards the exit, _'Hopefully Lerouge can prove himself to be worth all the trouble I'm going through to just get him to come here. If not, then he'll see what happens to people who waste my time.'_

**-Lelouch POV-**

Lelouch opened his eyes slowly as the lumps in his mattress became more and more apparent. Once his eyes were fully open, he found himself staring at white concrete ceiling of the inn room that he had rented the moment he reached Ronbaru. The raven-haired teen let out a small sigh as he sat up on his bed, the lack of sleep taking a good toll on his energy, rest being just as important in SAO as the real world.

A cold shiver went down Lelouch's spine when his feet met the cold wood floor underneath him, but he knew all too well that the floor wasn't the cause of the shiver. Still he quickly dispelled the thought, not wanting to spoil his morning once again.

Opening up his inventory, the raven-haired teen began scrolling through all his available gear, looking for any gear that would prove useful against the monsters in the floor's labyrinth. He also had to take into account that he needed to use equipment that suggested his level was in the upper-thirties, not the high-forties, which meant it took some time to find the equipment. After a few moments of searching, he finally found a set of equipment that would fit the bill and promptly equipped them.

The equipment Lelouch had chose didn't stray too far from the set he wore the day prior, which could be attributed to the fact that he had only changed the external components of his regular outfit. One could also attribute this to the fact that he didn't wear too much armor in the first place, due to the fact that he was more of a finesse oriented player, meaning that he was either going to parry the incoming or dodge, not dodge.

The only armor Lelouch did have on his person at that moment was a level forty-six chest piece that could easily deflect any attack attempted by the under-level monsters on this floor. To prevent people from noticing said piece of armor, he kept it underneath a variation of his usual buttoned-up, deep violet military greatcoat.

The former emperor also took a moment to decide which weapon he was going to use in the labyrinth, which of course taken more than single moment. After a few moments of thinking, Lelouch finally decided on the weapon he was going to wield and navigated to his PM inbox once again.

Once there, the raven-haired teen found exactly what he was looking for: a message from Kazuto. Lelouch immediately opened the message and upon reading it, he closed the screen while making his way towards the door of his room. Now knowing that the time was coming near, he decided that it was time for him to go to work.

* * *

><p>Lelouch continued walking down the crystal path, already knowing that it would lead him to the meeting spot Kazuto had mentioned. Which was simple enough, seeing that they had chose to meet up at the entrance of the labyrinth of all places.<p>

The raven-haired teen continued to follow the straight path, occasionally having to dispatch a monster that spawned in his path, but otherwise getting to the meeting location practically took no time at all. Hell, he even got there thirty minutes early of the designated nine o'clock time slot, which also meant that the Black Cats haven't actually reached the location yet.

Thankfully for himself, Lelouch was born with a high tolerance for such annoyances. A trait one needed if they had any aspirations of becoming a great leader, one could say that he had accomplished that goal several times over. Something he had become a long time ago. So barring any other options, Lelouch decided to wait the thirty minutes.

_'I'm sure they won't be too long and if they do, I did have to wait hours for Argo to appear yesterday, I'm sure that I can handle thirty minutes of doing nothing,' _Lelouch thought as cold shiver went down his spine for the second time today, making him seriously question his relations with other players because clearly, someone was making death threats directed about him.

Forcing the thought out of his mind for a moment, Lelouch sat himself down next to the door, not wanting to stand the rest of the thirty minutes. He then allowed himself to think about the relations he had in SAO, wondering how many actual allies he had in the game so far.

After a few moments of thinking, Lelouch's eyes widened at the number of players he could classify as an ally. It wasn't that it was big, it was quite actually the opposite. He had the grand-whopping total of two _real _friends in the game to this point.

The first obviously being Kazuto, mainly because they had an established relationship outside of the game. The second being a weapons merchant and part-time clearer named Agil.

The two had meet a few days after the 'Beater Incident' had occurred, something to which Agil was present for. He had tried looking for Kazuto and Lelouch, something that the two didn't want happening, as to not stir the pot any further. So they confronted him and were surprised to hear that he had actually understood their motivation during the event.

Agil had only been looking for them so that he could tell them, 'You two did the right thing there, you might of not win any popularity contests from now on, but you saved several lives today. Whether it be in the present or in the future.'

After telling us that, Agil promptly bought the two of them dinner for their actions. Something that the two hesitantly agreed to. The three had started conversations on-and-off during the dinner and they all soon found that they shared the same ideals about the 'SAO Incident'.

After months of being acquaintances, Lelouch soon began considering Agil a friend, even though the latter had thought that way of the prior the day of the first boss fight, being the day they had first met each other.

Still the lack of allies worried him greatly, making Lelouch wonder if taking the path of a solo player was the right choice. He became exceedingly stronger than the average player, but that doesn't really mean anything when everything falls apart on you and you're completely on your own.

There was really only one bright side to the path of the solo player, it meant that he didn't make too many friends, but it also meant that he didn't make too many enemies either. That of course didn't count the players who had hated beaters, who hated the players for what they are labeled as, not the person harboring it.

Now that he really thought about it, Lelouch couldn't list any players that really hated him. Then again, distinguishing the people that hated him for just being a beater and just him in general is a rather difficult thing to do.

Lelouch had experienced this before, distinguishing the people with him and the people who are against him, but doing it in SAO was much more difficult. In his past experiences with the endeavor, the major players were already drawn out for him. Personalities of those players were already drawn out for him, making it easy to single out the people that would best correlate with his current plans.

Doing this here would prove much more difficult as unlike his world, getting information took a lot more time and effort to attain. One could get information on a person off an information broker, but constantly paying the fees they charged would prove to be less than cost-effective and many times unreliable. That would of course leave the option of getting the information directly from the source. The information was much more accurate and any assessments of their character and ability can be made on the spot, which made it the clear choice for Lelouch if he ever really needed information on a player.

Before being able to delve into the thought further, the sound of footsteps came from the pathway in front of him and Lelouch could tell that it wasn't just a single player, there were at least five in the group.

_'Could that be the Black Cats,' _Lelouch wondered as he stood up from his position on the ground. Opening up his personal menu to confirm the thought, upon checking the clock, it did indeed read nine o'clock.

_'Time sure does fly when I space out like that,' _Lelouch noted as he caught sight of his companions, walking up to greet them, not before adding, _'I need to stop doing that, it could get me into trouble one of these days.' _

* * *

><p>"If we continue this pace, by the end of the day we're going to have more than enough money to buy ourselves that function for our new base," Ducker stated cheerily after yet another defeated monster.<p>

"We shouldn't get to cocky, the moment we reach the goal is the moment we teleport ourselves back to Taft," Kazuto replied, making it clear to the Black Cats that caution was the up-most importance in the labyrinth.

"You don't have to be such a kill-joy about it," Ducker huffed while crossing his arms in resentment, "I mean what do we have to fear with you and Lerouge with us. I mean, you two can kill any single monster in this labyrinth."

"Even if that's true, we shouldn't take too many chances," Lelouch replied, sharing the same caution in his voice as his adoptive brother before suddenly stopping in the middle of the seven-way intersection of crystal-block paths.

Seeing this, Kazuto immediately stopped in his tracks and asked his brother, "There something wrong Lerouge?"

"No, just thought that I saw another mob," Lelouch replied matter-of-factly, not wanting to worry the his brother and the other Black Cats, "Come on, we should keep moving."

"Sure, whatever you say," Kazuto stated with narrowed eyes, clearly skeptical of his response as he opened his mouth to continue.

Whatever he was going to say was quickly cut off by the excited voice of Ducker, "Yeah that's what I'm talking about! Hey you two get over here and check this out!"

Kazuto and Lelouch simultaneously turned their heads towards the sound of Ducker's voice, the moment their eyes reached their party members, they widened in surprise. Both thinking the same thought, _'A hidden door?' _

Hurrying over to their comrades, they were just able to see what laid inside the hidden room: a sole treasure chest sitting in the middle of the room. The sight making alarms go off inside Lelouch's head, immediately realizing that it was a trap, the alarms intensifying when he saw the Tetsuo, Sasamaru, and Ducker running to it blindly.

A conclusion that Kazuto seemed to make also as he called out to Ducker, who was now opening the chest, "No wait! It's a trap!"

The second after the chest was opened, the once sky-blue color of the crystal room was engulfed completely in a sea of crimson red, signifying that they had activated a trap. The moment the room was drenched completely red; panels in the wall raised, revealing a rows upon rows of Dark Dwarves. At the same time, Mineral Elementals began spawning inside the room. Within seconds the mobs had them completely surrounded.

"Everyone, let's get out of here!" Kazuto instructed frantically, doing the exact opposite of what was needed in the situation.

Everybody other than Lelouch immediately equipped a teleport crystal and attempted teleporting back to Taft, only leading them to be surprised when they didn't activate, Ducker being a good example of this as he repeated over and over again, "Teleport: Taft! Teleport: Taft!"

"We can't use our crystals?" Sachi exclaimed disbelievingly, making it sound much more like a question than an outright statement.

"So this is a crystal-nullification area then," Kazuto stated as the Dark Dwarves began to charge at the group of six.

The dwarves approaching Lelouch didn't even stand a chance, the raven-haired teen just dispatching two more dwarves with two lightning-fast stabs from his rapier. Taking a second to check-up on the rest of his party, he found that there situations were much more dire.

Although Kazuto was killing mobs with only a single hit, it seemed that he was struggling to keep up with the demand, something that Lelouch attributed to the handicap that Kazuto had placed on himself.

Suddenly a scream rang through the air and upon looking towards it, he saw Ducker lying on his stomach as Dark Dwarves slammed their pick-axes into him. The multiple hits eventually dropping his health bar to nothing less than a second later.

Forcing his attention back onto to them, Lelouch parried away an elemental's swipe and promptly sent the tip of his rapier clean through the sternum of the mineral-based monster. He pulled his rapier from the chest of the elemental while spinning, making the transition into cleaving a monster clean in half one smooth motion.

Then another cry of defeat reached Lelouch's ears, looking over to it, he saw Tetsuo being knocked backwards before turning into a flurry of blue pixels.

Sasamaru, who was standing right behind Tetsuo at the moment, saw this and cried out, "Tetsuo!"

In response to his friend's death, Sasamaru cursed loudly and activated a sword skill, stabbing the offending elemental with his spear angrily. Only for his weapon to become firmly lodged inside the elemental's chest, leaving him completely vulnerable to the monster. Doing as it was programed, the mineral-based monster slammed its stone fist into Sasamaru, turning him into pixels instantly.

Lelouch could only growl angrily at the death of yet another comrade. He felt helpless, utterly helpless, knowing that he couldn't of done a single thing to save any of them. He had absolutely no control of the situation and that angered him. Maybe even angering him more than the deaths themselves.

Lelouch was the demon emperor, he had killed millions of people during his short reign, all without batting an eye, but for some unknown reason the deaths he had just witnessed did bothered him greatly. The feeling only worsening as Lelouch saw the look of disbelief on his brother's face morph into one of rage and he could only watch as Kazuto lashed out at anything around him, slaying monsters one after the other.

Seeing a white hand quickly approaching him, Lelouch snapped himself out of his thoughts and quickly ducked underneath it. Sending the tip of his blade straight through the abdomen of the attacking elemental in response, killing it instantly.

Lelouch berated himself silently for allowing his thoughts to wander in the heat of battle, he also let out a curse upon noticing the number of mobs surrounding him had also grown exponentially. This probably should of worried him to some extent, but then again he was never one to be fazed easily.

Not wanting to wait for the mobs to charge at him all at once, Lelouch charged directly into the mob of monsters, impaling the unlucky dwarf in front of me clean through. Pulling the rapier out of the monster and used it to block the incoming swipe of an elemental.

Feeling that something dangerous was quickly approaching behind him, Lelouch nimbly spun around the elemental he was currently clashing with as it tried to hit him once again. Instead of harming Lelouch, the swing slammed into a pair of dwarves who had attempted to hit him from behind, the power of attack was enough to drop both their health levels to zero. Not wasting his time with killing the earlier elemental, still in mid-spin, Lelouch cleaved clean through a nearby dwarf.

The raven-haired teen didn't stop moving for a second, not wanting to give his enemies the opportunity to even attempt attacking him. Not wasting a single movement, he dispatched a monster with every step he took. The monsters just couldn't keep up with him, definitely not with his stats, so Lelouch did what any good tactician would do when faced with an underpowered enemy with the advantage of numbers: you make them killed themselves.

The action was simple enough to perform if one knew the mob's general patterns, Lelouch being one of the finest battle tacticians in the history of the world, could easily pick out weaknesses in the AI of some dwarves and elementals. One of those weaknesses being that they were all relatively slow to respond to changes, meaning that if someone were to dodge an attack, they wouldn't be able to stop themselves from hitting an ally who happened to be near their target, as demonstrated earlier.

Lelouch didn't hesitate in converting the thought into action and ducked underneath every attack sent his way, making absolutely sure that every dodged attack hit another monster. Which was easy enough to do when every one of your opponent's attacks are gang-attacks. The only real downside to the tactic was that not every attack was a one-hit kill, essentially making it take more time to kill an individual monster, but the efficiency of it just simply outweighed the price.

The raven-haired teen continued to do this for a solid ten second before noticing something behind a disappearing monster that made him stop, Kazuto reaching out for something in front of him, a desperate look in his brother's eyes. Eyes shooting towards the direction his brother was facing, he found the sight of an elemental's stone hand coming towards the back of the single surviving member of the Moonlit Black Cats that were present for the trap, Sachi and with her health as low as it was, she was surely going to die from the hit.

The moment he looked towards Kazuto, Lelouch found a familiar look spread across his brother's face. It was the look of someone who was going to see somebody extremely close to them die right in front of their eyes, the sight causing visions of death to rush through Lelouch's mind. Forcing him to wonder if that was the same face he had wore upon seeing his mother's dead body riddled with bullet holes, upon believing his sister being swallowed by the blast of an F.L.E.I.J.A. In that singular moment emotions from the past and the present collided making something inside of him snap.

Then almost as if his legs were moving on their own, Lelouch shot towards the elemental attacking Sachi, closing the distance between them in a mere second. The former emperor stabbed at the elemental's hand, hoping to at least block the attack with his blade. In the end, he could only watch as his blade had just barely missed the hand of the elemental. He had missed his mark, but the elemental did not.

From the corner of his eye, Lelouch watched helplessly as the hand scratched the back of Sachi's shoulder, draining the last of her health down to nothing. Falling forward, he had noticed the direction her head had been pointing towards and he immediately knew where she had been looking before dissipating into nothing but blue pixels. She had been looking towards Kazuto, probably to utter some sort of goodbye before her death.

Not a second later, the tip of Lelouch's rapier went clean through the offending monster's chest, it offered little solace for what had just happened. The raven-haired teen didn't even pull his sword out of the monster's chest, he just stood in that position unmoving, eyes closed and head hanging in self-reproach. Slowly looking back up to the impaled elemental, he opened his eyes, revealing a pair of amethyst orbs void of any emotion.

Tightening the grip he had on his rapier, Lelouch pulled the sword out of the stone monster. His legs suddenly gave out underneath him while doing so, causing the former emperor to unceremoniously fall onto his ass.

After failing to save Sachi, every single similar moment that he had ever experienced rushed into him all at once, becoming too much for even him to handle. In that moment he subconsciously checked out from the world around him, leaving him completely helpless to the monsters around him.

Inside of his mind, Lelouch found that he was currently surrounded by the figures of the people he held dear to him, each and everyone of them he had wronged in some fashion, had disappointed in some fashion. None of them said a word to him, they just stared at him silently, unmoving. All of the guilt he had accumulated over the years became more and more apparent to him.

Underneath all the guilt he had been harboring, Lelouch didn't feel a single ounce of sadness for once again seeing the people he had wronged, instead only anger lingered inside of him. He was angry at himself for not being able to move on from the past, he was angry that they were there to remind him of it.

Maybe the most angering thing about the whole situation was the fact that they were always there, lingering at the back of his mind, not even letting him sit down and think without forcing some memory down his throat. He wanted nothing more than to be rid of the memories, so he could fully live out this new life he had been given, but he just couldn't because somewhere deep inside of him, he found some solace in the fact that he was being tortured by these memories.

It allowed Lelouch to believe that he had indeed been punished for the sins he had committed in his prior life. The only thing he had wanted in death was to be punished for everything he had done and it had been ripped away from his clutches without the ability to do anything about it. Then again, it was the story of his life.

**-Kazuto POV-**

"LELOUCH!" Kazuto called out to his brother frantically, who was now sitting down in the middle of a horde of monsters motionlessly due to some kind of mental breakdown.

He knew that his brother's health was much higher than any of the monsters could deal out individually, even with a critical hit, but Lelouch wouldn't last long with all of those monsters attacking him at once.

Quickly dispatching a pair of incoming dwarves, Kazuto made a mad dash towards Lelouch's position, immediately killing anything that dare stand in between him and his brother. The black swordsman fought with everything he could muster, once again cursing himself for hiding his level from the Black Cats as he had to use under-level equipment to keep up the charade, making the task of getting to his extremely vulnerable brother much more difficult.

Glancing up to Lelouch's health bar, Kazuto found that he had already lost a quarter of his health and he hadn't even made it a quarter of the way to his brother. Forcing himself to move faster, he fought harder than he ever had before, he was absolutely not going to let his brother in this god-forsaken trap room.

The same room that had already claimed the lives of four his friends and now it believed that it could take the life of his brother, it infuriated him beyond words. Kazuto channeled that rage into every swing of his sword, just like that monsters began dropping like flies around him. He continued pushing through the swarm of mobs, getting closer and closer to Lelouch by the second.

_'Just a little bit closer...' _Kazuto thought as he continued to fight his way through wave after wave of monsters.

Checking Lelouch's health once again, he found that the monsters had already claimed half of his total health. Then suddenly something rock-hard slammed into the center of his back, pushing him into the crowd of monsters in front of him. Prompting a dwarf to take his already unsteady feet out from under him, causing him to land on his back with a loud thud.

Once on the ground, the black-clad swordsman found himself being stared down upon by four dwarves. He knew exactly what they were planning to do and he wasn't planning on letting them do so. Bringing his sword up to his chest to block the incoming attacks.

The moment the dwarves brought their weapons over their heads, Kazuto swept their legs out from under them with a pair of kicks. Kazuto, who was still spinning on the ground due to the kicks' momentum, promptly finished off the dwarves in mid-air with two strong slashes with his sword.

Quickly pushing himself back onto his feet, Kazuto renewed the charge towards Lelouch. The black-clad swordsman ducked underneath the right hook of an elemental and ran his sword through the elemental. Stealing another glance up at Lelouch's health, he found that it had now dropped to a quarter.

_'Dammit, I'm never going to make it to him at the rate his health's dropping...' _Kazuto trailed off as he slapped away the incoming hand of an elemental, thinking frantically for another way to reach his brother and then suddenly it came to him.

Not wasting another precious second, Kazuto jumped up on top of the elemental's head and launched himself up in the air towards Lelouch's position. Once up in the air, he was able to gauge just how many monsters it took to make his health drop so quickly. There were at least six on each side of him, hammering away at his vulnerable body all at once causing Kazuto to grimace at the sight, but nonetheless he continued on with his plan.

At the peak of his jump, Kazuto activated the Horizontal Square sword skill and upon descent, he aimed himself towards the center of the monsters attacking Lelouch. Which basically meant that he would have to land directly on his brother's back, but luckily for his sake he would take no life-threatening damage.

Kazuto took in a deep breath as he approached his target destination, he murmured a silent apology to his brother as he landed square onto his back. Not more than a second later, Kazuto let loose the sword skill on the surrounding monsters. Although horizontal square was a sword skill meant for a single enemy, it could still be used against multiple targets. There were only two noticeable drawbacks to using the move: the first being the obvious cool down period, the second being that attacking multiple targets at once with a sword skill designed for a single target greatly decreases its effectiveness as a whole. Thankfully for him, it was still able to fulfill the task asked of it. A light blue square appeared over his head as the sword skill concluded, the result of which being the empty health bars of the monsters surrounding him.

_'One... two... three...' _Kazuto thought, mentally counting off the seconds as he waited for the cool down effect to end. His anxiety level slowly rising as another wave of monsters moved to surround him and his brother once again, the both of them being in their most vulnerable they've ever been. Both physically and emotionally.

**-Lelouch POV-**

There standing in a crowd of familiar faces was Lelouch, not moving a single inch since arriving. In a corner of his mind, he knew that there was a battle being raged outside of this mental cage, but he was unable to return himself to the physical world. His own mind was forcing him to stay here, deep down inside of it, a part of him craved for death. Feeling that death would free him from the torturous guilt that had been building inside of him.

"I can not allow you to think in such a fashion, Lelouch," a familiar voice came from in front of him, Lelouch's attention immediately shifted towards the direction the voice had originated from.

His jaw dropped to floor at the sight before him, he tried to utter a response, but the pair of amber eyes staring back at him leaving him completely speechless. The only thing that had came out being a weak, "C.C?"

"You claim that you've disappointed all of these people with your past actions, am I correct?" she asked, still bearing the same indifferent tone. Still unable to respond with words, Lelouch gave a small nod instead, prompting the green-haired witch to reply with, "If you would bother to _really _look at the faces around you, you'll see that you're wrong."

_'Really look at the faces?' _Lelouch repeated mentally. Doing as she had said, the former emperor forced himself to look at crowd surrounding him once again and found something was different about the crowd staring back at him. Then he realized what had changed, he could see past the front row of people.

"Those people..." Lelouch began, his narrowed eyes shifting from unfamiliar face to unfamiliar face until his gaze fell upon a new face in the first row of people. His eyes widened at the sight of the new face, he opened his mouth to speak and closed it once again, finding himself unable to speak against the gaze of his own amethyst eyes staring back at him.

"It seems like you're finally beginning to understand," C.C stated coldly, "These people aren't the people you've disappointed with your past actions, no these are the people you've disappointed with what you've failed to do."

"What I failed to do?" Lelouch repeated to himself disbelievingly.

"You've spent four months in SAO to this point and at the beginning what did you promise yourself to do?" C.C asked, her voice once again bearing a cold tone.

"To get as many people as possible out of this game," Lelouch answered, confused at why she was even asking this in the first place.

"Now look at what you've done the past four months," C.C stated before narrowing her eyes at him, adding coldly, "Have you really been working to accomplish this goal or have you spent it wallowing in your own self-hatred?"

Lelouch knew that answer to this question, he knew it for a long time now, but he had just refused to face the answer up to this point. Even though he had spent a good deal of time helping the clearers clear the game, he had never done more than that. All of the time he could of spent helping the other players of SAO, every opportunity he had to improve the situation here in this death game had been squandered, had been spent doing nothing more than sulking over how much guilt he felt.

Then it suddenly dawned on Lelouch that this wasn't the first time he had experienced something like this. When Nunally had first announced to the world that she was going to be the next Viceroy of Japan, or Area 11 as it was known at the time, he just couldn't face the fact that she would be his enemy. It had made something inside of him snap and it escalated to a point where he was willing to take refrain, a powerful drug that made the user relive what they considered the good portions of their life. Then he received the one thing he had needed, a literal slap in the face courtesy of one Kallen Kozuki.

Now Lelouch could finally see that there was a reason behind this sudden blackout. For the past few months, he had been so contempt with just being another faceless player that it ate away at him. For some unknown reason, he tricked himself into believing that being another meaningless face in the crowd would save him from the guilt of failing yet another person. In the end, he would've failed more people by doing nothing.

"It seems like you're senses are finally returning to you, Lelouch," C.C stated, her voice harboring a small amount of relief, "Now don't you dare die anytime soon, you still have one more contract to fulfill."

"Are you talking about the contract I made with the Collective Unconscious, how did you find out that I'm alive, and how are you even contacting me right now?" Lelouch asked with narrowed eyes, wondering if the green-haired girl knew anything about the terms of said contract.

"All in due time Lelouch, all in due time," C.C answered in her usual vague fashion.

Then much like his first encounter with the Collective Unconscious, his eyes began to feel heavy and were soon forced closed under the sudden weight. Another aspect that hadn't changed from their first meeting and certainly didn't miss, was the disorienting feeling of the empty space around him suddenly morphing into something material.

Lelouch began to prepare himself for battle, needing to shake off the emotions that were spiraling inside of him and get back to his usual state of focus. Because the moment he awakened was the moment he began fighting for his life once again. He was going to live not just for his sake, but for every player he saves after this point moment in time.

**-Third-Person POV-**

Kazuto found himself in quite the predicament. There he was standing in front of the unconscious form of Lelouch. Both of their health bars had already drained to the brink of emptying and even after thinning their ranks by so much, he still knew he had little to no chance of surviving in his current situation. He knew that he would have had a better chance of surviving this onslaught if he didn't have to protect his brother, but that was out of the question.

Losing the Black Cats had hit Kazuto extremely hard, but to lose his brother on the same day would break him entirely. So he fought with everything he could muster, desperately hoping that his brother would awaken soon, because miracles didn't happen in a world dictated by numbers.

Glancing back towards his unconscious brother, Kazuto saw that dwarf had escaped his notice and had his weapon already over his head, ready to send it down onto a helpless Lelouch. Without hesitating, he immediately rushed over to his brother. Completely missing the elemental that hit him directly in the side, knocking the black-clad swordsman to the ground.

"Dammit!" Kazuto cursed as he rolled out of the way of an incoming attack. Even though doing this had saved him from taking more damage, it had positioned him farther away from his original goal of saving Lelouch.

Kazuto could only watch as the dwarf's hammer fall upon Lelouch over and over again, halving the remaining amount of his brother's remaining health before Kazuto could even push himself to his feet. The black-clad swordsman made a mad dash towards his brother, cutting down any monster who stood in his path. His eyes widened substantially at the sight of dwarf bringing his hammer back over its head for the attack that would ultimately drain the rest of Lelouch's health.

"NO!" Kazuto screamed, desperately reaching out towards his brother in a vain attempt to stop the offending hammer, then suddenly the hammer had stopped in mid-swing. He glanced down at Lelouch and saw something that had brought a wide smile onto his face.

It seemed that Lelouch had recovered from his earlier unconscious state, awakening with just enough time to run the tip of his rapier straight through the exposed belly of the dwarf, draining its health to nothing on impact. Not wanting to give the monsters surrounding him another chance to attack him, he clumsily pushed himself onto his feet and got into a defensive stance.

_'Damn lost more health than I thought, I need to be extra careful here,' _Lelouch noted while side-stepping the right hook of an elemental, leaving its side open for attack, an opportunity that he didn't fail to take advantage of as he added yet another dispatched elemental underneath his belt of kills.

Hearing the distinct sound of metal clashing against metal coming from a few feet behind him, Lelouch glanced behind him to see Kazuto jumping backwards and out of the reach of a dwarf's incoming attack. A small smiles forming on both of their lips as he realized they were now at each others' backs with both of their health bars depleted to almost nothing.

"Good to have you back Lerouge," Kazuto stated, extremely relieved to see his brother back up and fighting. Though he didn't fail to notice the new air of determination that surrounded Lelouch as he continued to stare down the monsters in front of him, silently gesturing to Kazuto to remain focused.

Giving a simple nod in response, Kazuto did as directed and returned his focus back on the swarm of monsters facing him. Letting in a deep breath, the black-clad swordsman mentally prepared himself for the task ahead and that was getting out of this trap room alive as soon as possible.

The moment they sensed that the other was ready to begin, they immediately charged into the crowd of monsters surrounding them with reckless abandon. The brothers knew that having numbers on an opponent didn't automatically mean a victory and it turned out, it certainly didn't apply in this moment. For the moment the brothers had begun clashing with their enemies, they had already won.

**-Eight Months Later-**

"So explain to me again why we're in the middle of the woods again," Lelouch asked his hooded guide once again, silently kicking himself for the amount of suspicion that had allowed into his voice.

"Ever the paranoid one, I see," Argo replied wistfully before adding, "How do you ever expect to get a girl with that kind of attitude?"

"You already know the answer to that question," Lelouch stated seriously, hoping to get off the topic before it spiraled out of control and he knew it would with her.

"You're only proving my point, you know," Argo replied as she turned around, allowing him to catch a small pout from underneath her hood.

"Can we please just get back to business," Lelouch asked with a small amount of an annoyance in his voice, hoping that it would inspire the information broker to actually give him information.

"As you wish," Argo replied with a small shrug before asking, "I'm guessing you want to know why I dragged you all the way out here, don't you?"

"That would be a great place to start," Lelouch answered simply, though he was curious as to why she had decided to openly seek him out, as it was extremely out of character for her to do so.

"You remember the announcement talking about Nicholas the Renegade, right?" Argo asked curiously.

Lelouch cursed under his breath as he was able to connect one-and two together. The raven-haired knew that Kazuto was in bad shape after what had happened on the 27th floor almost eight months ago, which had been clear to him as he witnessed his brother's personality change in front of him over the past few months. Though Lelouch wasn't sure if the change had been good or not.

During the first days of SAO, Kazuto had told him that their main focus should be getting stronger. Lelouch had seen no wrong in thinking this way, knowing that one couldn't help the weak without being strong, but he did warn his brother about becoming too focused on it. Reasoning that becoming too powerful would draw the attention of some people. Unfortunately there wasn't much chance of fulfilling that goal after the 'Beater Incident', but even after that they always tried to keep a low profile.

Still Kazuto had promised to him to not become too focused on leveling up, but ever since the death of the Black Cats, his pursuit of power had become relentless. Lelouch didn't have too much issue with it at the time as leveling up had always been a top priority for his brother, the raven-haired teen began to notice there was a pattern in the actions he had been taking as of late.

The quests Kazuto had been taking up were notorious for being extremely difficult, even the monsters he had been farming were several levels higher than him. Though Lelouch really didn't know if he should have said something, believing that it was his reaction to the deaths of the Black Cats.

Lelouch was no stranger to having the people you care about die in front of your eyes. He knew that people had their own reactions to such events and that most people were going to react negatively to such an event. He strongly believed that the only way for the person to stop acting in such a fashion was for the person to deal with their problems personally, so he allowed his brother to continue down the path he was on. Now Lelouch knew that this was the wrong course of action for him to take.

Lelouch could guess the reason why Kazuto was going after Nicholas the Renegade. He was probably going after the item that Nicholas was rumored to drop after being defeated, an item said to have the ability to revive a single dead player. It didn't take a genius to figure out he wanted the item to revive Sachi, who had been revealed to be extremely close with his brother before her death.

Though getting the item was definitely not going to be easy, even for a player as strong as Kazuto. An item that could revive a dead player would be invaluable to every player in this game, which meant that players were going to be searching top and bottom for Nicholas so one would need to be wary of being followed, especially by lurking PK'ers.

The second and final problem with attacking Nicholas the Renegade was the monster itself. The monster was rumored to be extremely strong, maybe as strong as some of the floor bosses. Making it clear that a single player had little to no chance of surviving the encounter and if the player did. Then eventually, other players would find Nicholas's spawning location, making the chances of getting the revival item even smaller.

"Dammit Kirito..." Lelouch muttered in frustration as he quickly equipped a teleport crystal. He opened his mouth to activate it, but Argo cut him off before he could,

"Good luck Lerouge, make sure you bring Ki-bou back safe-and-sound. He takes up a good portion of my business. "

"Good to see you acting more like yourself," Lelouch replied, flashing a wryly smirk as he activated the teleport crystal, totally missing the frown he had gotten in response, "Floor 35, Forest of Wandering."

**-Kazuto POV-**

_'Dammit, this thing is tough,' _Kazuto thought, slowly backing away from the disturbingly twisted version of Santa Claus standing in front of him. Knowing that the fight wasn't going in his direction at all.

The black-clad swordsman did some major damage to Nicholas, depleting the monster of two whole health bars. Which was a really impressive feat upon itself considering that he was fighting the damn thing completely on his own.

Though with all the damage Kazuto inflicted upon the monster, it dealt twice as much, already draining his health to a quarter percent. He was beginning to regret his decision to take on the special-event boss on alone, but he wasn't going to pull back, not without the revival item. He could care less about the very real possibility of him dying, his mind was completely on the item and what it entailed. With it, he could bring Sachi back from the dead and learn what she had said to him before she had died. Hoping that it would relieve him of the guilt that had been festering inside of him ever since that day, so with that very reason driving him, he charged towards the monster before him with little thought.

Once he had gotten into an appropriate distance from Nicholas the Renegade, Kazuto placed the blade of his sword along his forearm, activating the sword skill Steel Tornado. His blade flashed a light-blue as he launched himself towards the blue giant.

The black-clad swordsman slammed into his adversary with three spinning slashes to the stomach, depleting the last of Nicholas's second health bar, but Nicholas hadn't even budged from his original position an inch.

This allowed the blue giant to swat Kazuto out of the air with the handle of his ax after the sword skill had ended. Unfortunately Kazuto wasn't able to even block the attack due to the cool down effect of sword skill as he was flung into one of the trees surrounding the battlefield and onto the ground with a thud.

Kazuto remained on the ground motionless, unable to move due the cool down effect still taking its effect. He could only watch as Nicholas lumbered towards his vulnerable form, closing the distance between them in a mere moment. He could only silently berate himself for using a sword skill with such a long cool down period.

_'Even if the cool down effect were to end right now, I won't be able to get out of the way of an attack, much less block the attack. Even then I wouldn't be able to survive with my current health,' _Kazuto thought with wide eyes as the blue giant raised its giant ax into the air, clenching his fists tightly as he awaited his impending demise, _'I'm sorry everybody.' _

**-Lelouch POV-**

Lelouch was quickly approaching the 'certain pine tree' that was rumored to lead to Nicholas the Renegade's spawning location. It was easy to figure out the tree the rumor talked about considering that there was only one pine tree to ever stand alone in The Forest of Wandering.

When Lelouch had reached the clearing where the tree stood, he was mildly surprised to see a pair of guilds fighting around it. Both guilds seemed to be in a stalemate, even though one seemed to have a major advantage in numbers.

The raven-haired teen contemplated helping the outnumbered guild for a moment, but he quickly shot the idea down. Electing to stay focused on his current task: saving Kazuto before he got himself killed.

Lelouch simply jumped over the battling guilds, being able to recognize the two guilds in battle in mid-air. The guild that was currently outnumbered by the other was known as Fuurinkazan, a clearing guild headed by none other than Klein, a friend of Kazuto. The guild that they were currently outnumbered by was known as The Divine Dragon Alliance, a top clearing guild that was only second to the Knights Blood Oath.

_'Did he come here to help Kazuto?' _Lelouch asked himself with a small amount of guilt for leaving Klein to the birds, but he quickly shoved it to the back of his mind, telling himself mentally, _'I can help Klein once I'm done saving Kazuto.'_

Lelouch landed right in between the clashing guilds and the pine tree, seemingly unnoticed. Taking advantage of his unknown presence, the raven-haired teen ran past the tree and into Nicholas the Renegade's spawning location.

Upon entering the spawning location, Lelouch found a sight that nearly made his eyes jump out of their sockets in shock.

There lying in front of a tree was Kazuto, not moving for some reason or the other, a sliver of health remaining in his bar. In front of him was Nicholas the Renegade, his gigantic ax raised into the air, ready to be brought down upon the black-clad swordsman.

Not seeing a clear path to Kazuto's location, Lelouch instead ran towards Nicholas the Renegade, knowing that his only hope of saving his brother was to bring down the blue giant before it brought the ax down upon him.

Lelouch quickly calculated how much damage it would take to completely drain the blue giant's last health bar and compared the number to the strongest sword skill in his arsenal with the base damage his rapier dealt. It soon became clear to him that it would take the combination of his most powerful sword skill and a critical hit to bring the blue giant down, though now that he thought about it a little more, that should have been his course of action from the start. With the requirements for victory set in place, the former emperor made his move.

The raven-haired teen launched himself high into the air, his extremely high acrobatics stat making it easy for him to reach a height taller than the blue giant stood in a single bound. He placed the blade of rapier underneath his forearm, activating the sword skill Point Precision.

The sword skill was consisted of only a single hit, but that one hit was all Lelouch needed. This was because the sword skill amplified the base damage done by the user's weapon by a magnitude of five, easily draining a good portion of the blue giant's health, even if one was using a weapon with rather low base damage stat. If the user was able to get a critical hit with the sword skill, the damage of the attack would increase two-fold, making the attack extremely deadly.

The violet-clad swordsman plan began to unfold as he landed on top of Nicholas's ax and quickly grabbed onto the handle. His presence going completely unnoticed by the blue giant as it brought its weapon down upon Kazuto, unknowingly bringing Lelouch down with it.

When the ax reached mid-swing, Lelouch launched himself from his position on the handle and towards the now vulnerable forehead of Nicholas the Renegade. The once crimson blade of his sword now shining a deep violet as he let loose point precision.

System assist now taking over his movements, Lelouch drove his rapier deep into the forehead of the blue giant. The moment the whole of his rapier penetrated the skull of Nicholas the Renegade, had been the same moment it exploded, letting loose a flurry of blue pixels, just like every other monster to ever meet him in battle.

A victorious smile appeared on the features of the violet-clad swordsman as he fell through the flurry of pixels, ultimately landing on the snow-covered ground in a crouching position, triumphantly uttering the words, "Merry Christmas."

**-Kazuto POV-**

Kazuto could only stare at his violet-clad brother, having been rendered completely speechless by Lelouch's sudden appearance. Although it took him a few seconds, the black-clad swordsman had finally been able to fully comprehend what had just happened and upon doing so, he smiled.

Wanting a few more second of reprieve, Kazuto rolled over onto his back and closed his eyes, basking in the cooling sensation the virtual snow was giving him. He laid there in that position until the sound of crunching snow reached his ears.

Reopening his eyes, Kazuto found his brother staring down at him, an uncommon look of concern in his eyes. This made the messy-haired teen wonder what his brother was so concerned about, _'He saved me and he should have the revival item, so what's wrong?' _

"The revival item won't bring Sachi back," Lelouch stated in a grim tone.

"WHAT!" Kazuto asked in disbelief, not believing the words that came out of his brother's mouth, "What do you mean it won't bring Sachi back?"

"The item can only revive players that have died ten seconds before activation," Lelouch explained, his tone still extremely grim, "Here, see for yourself."

Lelouch opened up his inventory and scrolled down to and selected an item named: Divine Stone of Returning Soul. A moment later, a small blue orb materialized in his hand. The raven-haired teen then held the orb out to Kazuto, who immediately took it from him.

Kazuto opened his own inventory and read the stone's description: 'The item can be activated on the player's shortcut menu or by holding the materialized item and calling Revive... [Player's Name]. The effect will only work during the time frame between death of the player to the disappearance item's light effect, which is approximately ten seconds.'

The last phrase had made his heart break into a million places, Kazuto didn't even move for a few moments. The word 'ten seconds' continually playing through his mind like it was some cruel taunt made by some school kids. Then, the sound of snow crushing behind him shook him from these thoughts.

Glancing over towards where it originated from, Kazuto found his brother sitting down with his back to him. The messy-haired teen stared at the backside of Lelouch's head for a few seconds, expecting him to say something the whole time, but he just continued to sit there without uttering a word.

"Aren't you going to say something?" Kazuto asked with a strange mix of curiosity, confusion, and disappointment in his voice.

"No," Lelouch replied simply, not even bothering to look back at him.

"Why?" the messy-haired teen asked, now returning his gaze back out in front of him.

"Nothing that I say or do is going to improve the situation," Lelouch explained as he stood from the snow-covered ground underneath him, "Though maybe this can."

Curious at what he meant, Kazuto looked over to his raven-haired brother and found that he was now holding a small box in his gloved hand. Lelouch threw it to him with a small smirk and said to him, "Merry Christmas Kirito."

_'A message-record crystal?' _Kazuto wondered before asking himself, _'Why would Lelouch give this to me?'_

A question that he was going to ask Lelouch himself, but he was already gone when Kazuto looked back up. The black-clad swordsman decided to check the item screen for the crystal, hoping to find out more information about the item, but found nothing.

So finding himself with no other option, he activated the crystal and was shocked at the voice that came from it, "Merry Christmas, Kirito! If you're hearing this, then I'll most likely be dead."

_'Sachi, but how did...' _Kazuto asked mentally, the hand that held the box now shaking uncontrollably as he tried to figure out how Lelouch had gotten his hands on the item, _'How did she even give it to him without me noticing? They didn't know each other for that long and even when they were together, I had been there, so how?' _

Then a moment came to mind, that moment had been the only moment they were left alone together, so it had to be it.

**-Eight Months Earlier-**

**(Lelouch POV)**

"That's another monster dead," Lelouch muttered absently, pulling his rapier out of the monster in question, prompting it to explode into pixels. Then a small screen appeared in front of the violet-clad swordsman, simply explaining what items the monster had dropped.

"Good kill there Lerouge, as expected of a player of your caliber," Ducker stated before placing a hand onto his shoulder and giving him a congratulatory slap between the shoulder blades.

"Thanks," Lelouch replied in a slightly awkward tone, obviously still adjusting to getting praise for doing something so simple.

"So how much more col do we need before we reach our goal?" Sasamaru asked curiously. Ducker, who was managing all of the loot they earned on the raid, answered, "We're about ten-thousand col away from reaching our goal."

"That isn't too much, especially with the col the mobs have been dropping lately," Sachi opined, gaining Lelouch's attention immediately as it was the first time he heard Sachi had speak without being directly spoke to.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Ducker asked optimistically, running down the crystal corridor ahead of the rest of the party.

Seemingly sharing his feelings, Tetsuo and Sasamaru immediately ran after their fair-haired friend. Leaving Sachi, Kazuto, and himself behind.

"You're friends sure are optimistic," Lelouch stated simply.

"Yeah they are," Kazuto replied in a tone that mirrored one of a mother worried about her children, "We should hurry after them before they get themselves into trouble."

Kazuto didn't even wait for a response from them, he had simply ran after the departing trio, leaving Sachi and himself alone.

Not wanting to get left behind, Lelouch began to follow his brother before he he had been stopped by Sachi, "Hey Lerouge, can I have a word with you?"

Lelouch had immediately stopped and turned to the girl, caught off-guard by the sudden request, but one would never be able to actually notice.

Not knowing what else to say, Lelouch gave a nod and asked, "Sure, what's up?"

"Can I ask you to do something for me?" Sachi asked, clearly being unsure about whatever she was going to ask of him.

Lelouch blinked at the question, now wondering what the girl wanted of him. But he decided to respond with a little caution, not wanting to just agree with whatever she had in mind, because that could range from death to the obscene, both being definite 'no's' in his mind.

"Tell me what you have in mind," Lelouch replied, making sure to have a little caution in his voice so it would be clear that he didn't completely trust her.

"Could you give this to Kirito on Christmas Eve?" Sachi asked, holding out a sea-green box out to him.

Lelouch relaxed upon seeing the box, immediately recognizing it as a message-record crystal.

Though he was a little disappointed of how anti-climatic the exchange had been, but he of course asked the obvious question, "Why can't you or one of the others do it?"

"There's no good reason, I just think you're best person to do this," Sachi explained simply.

Lelouch wanted to question what she had meant by that, but he really didn't want the conversation to drag on too long and waste valuable time on such a trivial matter.

"Sure, I'll do it," Lelouch replied before taking the crystal from the girl's hand.

Not knowing that the sea-green box would have significant meaning in the months to follow, especially to the black-clad swordsman that was his brother.

**-Present Day-**

**(Lelouch POV)**

Lelouch could only smile at what had just transpired. He had just been fooled. It didn't happen often, but he knew when it did.

When he had first received the crystal from Sachi, he thought it nothing more of it. Hell, he had actually forgotten about it up until that moment because of how insignificant it had been at that time. Though now when he looked at the big picture, everything connected perfectly.

Sachi must of heard something about his and Kazuto's close relationship through some kind of rumor. Then, wanting to confirm these rumors, she had went to Argo for information. Her suspicions were proved to be correct when he had appeared at their hideout with Kazuto that one day.

_'She must of foreseen that she was going to die before Christmas somehow and recorded a 'goodbye' message to give Kazuto some kind of closure,' _Lelouch thought, being slightly impressed with Sachi's forward thinking, _'And even if she hadn't died before Christmas, she must of known that I wouldn't remember to actually give it to him. What a clever girl.' _

**-End-**

Well that's it folks. Hope you enjoyed this extremely long chapter, by my standards. Tell me your opinions on the chapter.

If you completely hated it and think I should die for ruining this story, still tell me how to improve and I'll take it into consideration. If you did enjoy it than do the same, it keeps me humble.

Once again, I hope you enjoyed and PEACE OUT!


	4. Chapter 3: Emergence of a New Evil

Hey guys and welcome to chapter 4 of Complete Immersion. I have to thank you guys for the support you've been giving me on this story. This story has surpassed my previous most popular story, 'Where Real Monsters Go', which is something I never expected from this story when I first wrote it. I can't thank you guys more than I already have, but once again thank you.

As you can see, this chapter isn't as long as the chapter prior, but I'm sure you guys will enjoy it just the same. Since this is the first time I'm going to be straying from canon and show some of Lelouch's adventures away from the main storyline. If not... damn.

This story takes place exactly two months after the events of the previous chapter, probably should of said that during the chapter, but I couldn't figure out a way too without summing up the past two months.

Anyways, thanks to monkeinguin for being the 100th favorite on this story, for your prize, you get an imaginary cookie. Thanks to the other 139 others for you support, I would give you cookies too, but I didn't bake that many.

I'm going to respond to your reviews now!

**Pltrgst: I apologize for not being able to exceed your expectations, but I assure you that Lelouch will have his moments in the future, just not then. Thanks for getting one positive note in there. **

**Starkaster: That should be issue should be fixed, but I may of missed some.**

**TykkiMikk: Unfortunately Lelouch isn't wearing his Zero garb, but something close to it. **

**NeoNazo: Yeah that's probably true. Once again, I'm not going to divulge into Lelouch's abilities yet. **

**Note to people questioning Lelouch's choice of being a solo player and being OOC: I have done everything I write in this story for a purpose. That's all I'm going to say.**

I'm going to roll the disclaimer now... so yeah.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I don't own either Code Geass or Sword Art Online in any way, shape, or form.

**-Chapter 3: Emergence of a New Evil-**

_'I wonder what's going on over there,' _Lelouch thought as he looked upon the crowd of players in front of him with great curiosity, _'Crowds of that size just don't appear with no good reason, so what could of caused it?' _

Knowing that he would never get answers from this position, Lelouch walked over to the crowd and gently pushed his way through the crowd, which had gotten him more than one insults from the other players, but he simply ignored them and continued on.

After a few moments of pushing people out of his way, Lelouch had finally reached the front of the crowd, where he was faced with quite the troubling situation. There standing in the middle of the crowd were four hooded players, all of them seemingly members of the KOB by the looks of it. By the look of it, they were giving some sort of an announcement.

"I'm only going to repeat myself one more time so listen up," said one of the KOB members, "Over the past month, the number of PK'ing incidents has spiked dramatically due to recent formation of the PK guild 'Laughing Coffin', who is responsible for the complete destruction of a small guild.

The KOB strongly advises that players not travel on paths alone and that you have several antidote crystals with you at all times as these players are known to be very skilled poison makers.

Also note that these players will show no mercy to their victims and will more often then not, make their deaths as painful as possible. That is all."

Lelouch could only frown at the new presented to him, knowing that this was going to be a problem for a solo player like himself. Though he could most likely fight back any PK attempt made on his person, since he was already level eighty, probably making him the highest leveled player in the game up to this point.

But that still didn't make him completely safe from harm, 'Laughing Coffin' could always poison him during a battle with a really difficult mob or when his health is low. That meant he would need to be extra wary about his surroundings, just like every other player.

_'Damn, this is going to be a pain in the ass for months to come,' _Lelouch thought bitterly, now beginning to join the dispersing crowd around him in leaving the area, but something made him stop in his tracks. There was something inside of him that just couldn't allow the actions of 'Laughing Coffin', that wanted some sort of justice for the players dead at their hands.

Fueled by this strange feeling, the violet-clad swordsman turned back to the KOB members and asked them, "Is there anyway I can help?"

"I'm really not the one you should be asking for something like that, I'm just the messenger, sorry about that," The KOB messenger explained before giving a small bow in apology.

"No problem," Lelouch replied with a soft sigh, making sure to sound extra disappointed, "Sorry to have bothered you."

The violet-clad swordsman began to walk away from the messenger and then counted down from three, knowing it would only take those many seconds for the messenger would call him back.

One...

Two...

Three...

"Hey kid, wait up!" The KOB messenger called to him right on his cue. Lelouch turned on a heel to find the messenger standing directly behind him, saying, "I think I may have a way for you to help."

"Really?" Lelouch asked, feigning a mix of excitement and astonishment that seemed to fool the messenger, "How?"

The KOB messenger nodded and explained further, "Information on 'Laughing Coffin' is rather sparse at the moment so any info on them would always be a big help. But you're not going to be able to do much after that unfortunately."

"Do you happen to know why that is?" Lelouch inquired, his tone being filled with curiosity.

"Unfortunately no, when you're just the messenger, you don't get to know the things the higher-ups do," The messenger answered, followed by a lighthearted chuckle, "But if I had to guess, it would most likely be because they don't want anyone dying because they don't want to send players off to their deaths."

"I guess I can see the reasoning behind that," Lelouch replied with a small amount of uncertainty, letting out a small sigh before he continued speaking, "Thanks for the information, see you later."

The violet-clad swordsman didn't wait for the messenger to respond, he simply turned on a heel and began walking away from him. Though he did hear the messenger yell, "Remember to be careful!"

The demon emperor cracked a smile at the statement, finding it rather nice for someone to give a damn about a complete stranger's safety. It was a sentiment that he wasn't offered often, may it be IRL or SAO. Then again, it wasn't like the same thing didn't happen to everyone else, right?

* * *

><p><em>'Where to begin?' <em>Lelouch asked himself, currently sitting up in his favorite hiding place: the large branch of a tree on the first floor, trying to figure out how to being his search for 'Laughing Coffin'. He let out a frustrated sigh as he had only came up with two plausible courses of action.

The former emperor had come up with more than that initially, but many had to be eliminated from contention due to them being either overly dangerous, overly demanding, or overly drastic.

_'So I've got two options here,' _Lelouch thought, _'Option Number 1: Find a member of 'Laughing Coffin' and interrogate them. That seems easy enough, but since no one knows their set territories, finding a member is going to be rather time consuming and the chances of running across one of the members is slim at best._

_Option Number 2: Go to the KOB and ask for information from them. This option could prove to have many more issues than the other option, but it's substantially less reliant on sheer chance.'_

The raven-haired teen continued to think it over and after a few moments of deep thought, he finally came to the conclusion that option two was the best option for him at the moment.

Lelouch didn't particularity enjoy the idea of working with the KOB, but he really didn't have a choice in the matter. The only other player who could have any information on 'Laughing Coffin' would be Argo and even he doubted that she knew as much as the KOB.

That meant that he was going to have to go through the KOB if he wanted a shot at 'Laughing Coffin' any time in the near future. He was just going to have to deal with it.

Now that Lelouch came up with a course of action, the only thing left for him to do was to act on it.

The raven-haired teen equipped one of his many teleport crystals and then activated it, "Teleport, Granzam."

* * *

><p>If there was a city in Aincard that most resembled the cities of the outside world, it was Granzam. Skyscrapers had lined the sky, vegetation was sparse, and foot traffic was heavy. Everything about the city had screamed metropolis, but Lelouch couldn't help noticing how misplaced the steel city was compared to the major cities prior.<p>

All of the cities before Granzam always had some sort of fantasy aspect to them, something that made them stand out from the cities of the real world, but this city was different.

Almost everything in Granzam reminded Lelouch of the outside world and truth be told, the sudden change had bothered him. It was almost as if Kayaba Akihiko had made this city to send a message to the players, but what that message he didn't know.

The violet-clad swordsman had a few theories on the subject when he first saw Granzam, but he eventually stopped trying to understand the meaning behind the 'Steel City'. His reasoning being that he would be trying to understand the actions of a mad man by doing so.

"But then again, who am I to talk about being a man man?" Lelouch asked himself, minding to keep his voice low enough so no one around him could hear, doubting that the people around him would just allow him to question his own sanity.

But the more he thought about it, Lelouch realized that he shared several things in common with the infamous creator of SAO. For example, both he and Kayaba were incredibly intelligent people who had spilled the blood of thousands of innocent people without any form of remorse.

There was only one real difference between the two, and it was that even with all the blood Lelouch had spilled, all of those lives he had ended, meant something in the end. Something that would save the lives of millions if not billions of people in the future, more than making up for his past actions.

But the actions of Kayaba Akihiko had no meaning to them, he wasn't trying to save lives with this death game. All he was doing was satisfying his god-complex and nothing more. Knowing that information from the beginning of the game, Lelouch had no doubts about who the final boss of SAO was going to be.

Kayaba Akihiko, a man whose god-complex was so large, he made his own personal world so he could watch its inhabitants struggle through every passing day, would never allow some AI-controlled monster signal its end.

No, a man like Kayaba was going to oversee the duty personally and make sure his world was going to survive, even if it was only a single day longer. Either that or he admits he's a coward who's too scared to receive punishment for his own transgressions.

But truth be told, Lelouch hoped for the prior over the latter. Wanting to know that the man responsible for entrapping him in this death game had some sort of honor and take whatever punishment that befalls him. Maybe then, all of the lives he had taken would mean something.

Now having thoroughly depressed himself, Lelouch let out another sigh and decided to continue on with his original goal of speaking to Heathcliff about the 'Laughing Coffin' situation.

_'I should really stop philosophizing about such things, it always ends with me being depressed,' _Lelouch told himself mentally, knowing that he should do so to spare his already faltering mental health.

So with that depressing side note, Lelouch continued on his quest to the KOB's base.

A few moments later, the raven-haired teen found himself standing in front of said base. The building was relatively easy to find, considering it was the only building in Granzam to fly flags inscribed with the 'Knights of Blood' logo; a single white sword.

"Looks like I found the place," Lelouch stated absentmindedly, gazing upon the large steel gate that separated the base from the rest of the outside world, "So how do I get inside, I wonder."

The violet-clad swordsman briefly wondered if he could walk straight through the front door, but quickly dispelled that thought, knowing that it was never going to be that easy.

So with that thought firmly rooted into his mind, Lelouch made a quick scan of the structure and the buildings surrounding it, looking for any possible way past the impenetrable gate standing before him.

Unfortunately for Lelouch, there were no obvious ways past the gate. The gate was too tall for him to jump above in a single bound and the building surrounding it were too far away for him to jump across.

Seeing no way past the gate, Lelouch was forced to resort to his earlier strategy of walking up to the gate and asking for entry.

"This is never going to work," Lelouch told himself as he approached the main entrance of the base, questioning why he was even doing this in the first place.

Upon reaching the entrance of the base, a female guard adorned with a full set of heavy armor stationed next to it stopped him as expected, asking him a rather cliché question, "Who goes there?"

"Uh, my name is Lerouge," Lelouch answered, being slightly bewildered by the girl's audacity, but recovered his composure an instant later.

"What's your business here?" the guard asked, her tone being the same as before.

"I want to speak with Heathcliff," Lelouch replied, prompting the guard to open her mouth to retort something before he continued, "He had a messenger come to me a while back saying he wanted to have a conversation with me. I'm simply here to accept the invitation."

The guard gave an owlish blink at his explanation, making Lelouch wonder if she had bought his explanation, but suddenly her eyes widened in realization as she stated, "Oh, you're that Lerouge."

"Sounds like I've been expected," Lelouch told the guard, having a completely calm exterior as he said this, but on the inside he was wondering if Heathcliff had some how managed to anticipate his visit today and lead him into a trap.

The guard muttered something under her breath, too low for Lelouch to hear, and then continued on with saying, "Come on inside and I'll alert Heathcliff of your arrival, he'll most likely meet you at the entrance to the tower."

"Thank you," Lelouch told the guard as she side-stepped out of his path.

The raven-haired teen walked past the guard and into the main courtyard of the KOB base, which was unsurprisingly filled with members of said guild.

_'Well this complicates things,' _Lelouch said to himself mentally, having not expected the presence of this many members.

But as he studied them, Lelouch noticed something odd about the knights he passed; all of their equipment had some form of wear and tear on them. Making the raven-haired teen assume they had just recently returned from yet another boss fight.

The raven-haired teen contemplated asking one of the players just what had happened, but quickly decided against it, knowing that he could accidentally bring up painful memories for the person by doing so.

Finding himself with no other options, Lelouch walked over to the tower's main doors and awaited Heathcliff's arrival. All the while ignoring the curious glances he had received from the players around him, having been more than accustomed to the feeling at this point.

_'It's been a long time since I've had these many eyes on me,' _Lelouch noted mentally, sweet nostalgia coursing through him as he had always enjoyed the feeling of being the center of attention, but had strayed from it due to the fact he was a known beater.

Lelouch often wondered how his life in SAO would of changed if he hadn't performed the 'beater stunt' with Kazuto. Since he had a good amount of free time on his hands, he spent that time coming up with rather detailed scenarios of what could of happened.

In many of those scenarios, Lelouch found himself leading a small group of players or even a large guild similar to the KOB. And deep down inside, he wanted nothing more than to live that type of life once again, but that ship had already left the shore.

Then Lelouch noticed a sudden shift in the doors in front of him, forcing him to abandoned the thoughts immediately, he was going to need all of his focus for his upcoming conversation.

The man he was going to meet wasn't just some ordinary player with an uncanny ability to lead troops, Heathcliff was arguably the strongest player in SAO and Lelouch knew better than to show weakness in front of someone who was even in contention for that title.

Once the doors were fully open, the man in question came out of the tower and into sight, four bodyguards accompanying him on all sides step for step until they were standing directly in front of him.

The two bodyguards in front of Heathcliff separated, revealing the famous leader of the KOB, a small smirk on his face as he said in an overly formal tone, "It's quite an honor to finally meet you Lerouge, you've kept me waiting for quite awhile."

"For that I apologize, I've been rather preoccupied as of late, but the only thing that matters it that I'm here now," Lelouch replied pleasantly, "So what could the strongest player in SAO ever want from someone like myself?"

"I could always ask you the same question, couldn't I?" Heathcliff countered sternly, taking him only a second to see through his pleasant demeanor, "So before I reveal my intentions, I would like to hear yours."

"You're quite the sharp one aren't you?" Lelouch asked, being a little impressed with how quick he deduced his real intentions, "I'm looking for information on a red-guild called 'Laughing Coffin' and I hear you're the leading supplier."

"You're not wrong, but what gave you the impression that I was just going to give you this information for free?" Heathcliff asked quizzically.

"The answer is quite simple actually, I didn't," Lelouch answered matter-of-factly, "So considering you know what I want from you, I think it's only fair that I know what you could possibly want from me."

"But of course," Heathcliff replied simply, "What I want from you is a duel."

"A duel?" Lelouch repeated, making sure he had heard Heathcliff correctly.

The leader of the KOB gave a simple nod in affirmation, which only served to confuse Lelouch further.

Lelouch opened his mouth to respond, but Heathcliff cut him off before he could so he could explain further, "Note I'm not doing this for my own entertainment, I simply want to gauge how powerful you are in battle, nothing more."

The raven-haired teen narrowed his eyes at the man in front of him, not buying the reason Heathcliff had given him. This suspicion came from past experience, knowing that people with power never gave information up without having some deeper reason behind it.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to decline your offer," Lelouch stated politely, not wanting to insult the man who was already intent on fighting him.

Heathcliff raised an eyebrow at him quizzically and replied, "If you don't want to fight me I won't stop you, but before you leave, could you give me a reason why?"

"Tell me, what could I possibly gain from having a duel with you?" Lelouch asked, replacing the polite tone he had been using with a much more serious one to get the point across.

Heathcliff didn't answer the question, leaving the raven-haired teen to answer it himself, "Nothing, that's exactly what I would gain from fighting, but you on the other hand would gain information about myself. Now tell me, does that sound fair to you?"

The guards around Heathcliff shifted, most likely because of the sudden change in the teen's tone and overall demeanor.

Seeing this reaction, Lelouch decided it was best to remove himself from the situation so he wouldn't strain the situation any further, "Looks like it's time for me to take my leave, until next time Heathcliff."

The raven-haired teen didn't give Heathcliff the time to respond, he simply turned on a heel and made his way towards the exit, but stopped when the leader of the KOB called out to him, "Lerouge, you wanted information on 'Laughing Coffin', correct?"

Lelouch turned back around to Heathcliff and asked, "Yeah, why do you ask?"

"If I offered you all of the information on 'Laughing Coffin' that the KOB has, would you reconsider my request?" Heathcliff asked, a small amount of curiosity present in his voice.

"Just for agreeing to fight you?" Lelouch inquired, countering Heathcliff's question with one of his own.

The leader of the KOB gave a nod in affirmation, prompting Lelouch to stretch his hand out to the man in front of him and say, "Then you have yourself a deal, my dear man."

**-3****rd**** Person POV-**

"Well this was unexpected," Lerouge stated absentmindedly, gazing upon the crowds of people staring down at Heathcliff and himself.

All of which were saying things like:

"_You're going to get crushed pretty boy!"_

"_You don't stand a chance!"_

"_I hope Heathcliff doesn't mess you're pretty face up too much!"_

"I apologize for this," the sound of Heathcliff's voice dragging Lerouge away from the cheering of the crowd, "I didn't know this many people would show up."

"There's no need to apologize," Lerouge replied, a small smile creeping onto his face, "Truth be told, I kind of like having the attention."

"Then why be a solo player?" Heathcliff asked suddenly, a question Lerouge had been asking himself over the past nine months, "From what I've heard you have everything needed to be in a guild or even lead one, so why play solo?"

"Some events that have taken place in the past has made it impossible for me to do so," Lerouge explained simply.

"Are you talking about being a beater?" Heathcliff asked softly, which was the obvious answer if someone knew enough about his past endeavors in SAO.

The raven-haired teen simply shook his head and answered with, "It happened IRL."

Heathcliff had opened his mouth, probably wanting to question him further, but wisely closed his mouth. He simply opened his personal menu and sent a duel-request to him, reading:

**Duel Request **

**Sender: Heathcliff**

**Duel Type: 1vs1/half-loss.**

**Accept/Decline**

The violet-clad swordsman didn't hesitate a moment and immediately pressed 'accept', starting the 60 second countdown to the beginning of the duel.

Lerouge watched as Heathcliff unsheathed his one-handed straight sword from its sheathe in his tower-shield, a weapon set known Aincard round as 'Liberator'.

Prompting the raven-haired teen to unsheathe his own weapon, a silver rapier with a crimson flower as its hilt, known only to select few as 'Crimson Lotus'.

The two stared each other down as the seconds ticked by and when the timer had reached ten seconds, the crowd began counting down with the timer.

The two combatants prepared themselves for the upcoming duel by getting into their respective stances and listened to the crowd's chanting.

"_3... 2... 1!" _

On the count of one, Lerouge shot towards Heathcliff with all of the speed he could muster and stabbed, managing to catch his adversary by surprise.

But Heathcliff had managed to regain composure fast enough for him to block the incoming stab with his shield, giving him a clean shot at the raven-haired teen's newly exposed side. So he took advantage of this opening and slashed at Lerouge with his sword.

To Heathcliff's surprise, Lerouge easily parried the incoming swing and sent a series of lightning fast thrusts into his shield, managing to block each and everyone.

Having enough of being on the defensive, Heathcliff swung his blade at Lerouge's throat, forcing the raven-haired teen to jump backwards.

The attack didn't stop the raven-haired teen's assault one bit because on the moment he landed, Lerouge shot towards Heathcliff once again and slashed at him furiously. But this time the leader of the KOB had been prepared for the onslaught and had did the same as he did, their blades continually colliding into each other with the same loud clang.

Then suddenly Heathcliff swung at Lerouge's exposed side with the shield in his free hand, but the raven-haired teen had some how managed to react fast enough to duck underneath the swing.

Seeing a rare opening, Lerouge took a step forward and stabbed at Heathcliff's exposed stomach. The raven-haired teen smirked at the opening, knowing that Heathcliff would never be able to move to block or dodge the attack.

But to Lerouge's surprise, Heathcliff's shield had moved from its original position to right in front of the teen's rapier in an instant, nullifying the attack completely.

Before the violet-clad swordsman could question what had just happened, Heathcliff swung at him with his sword, forcing Lerouge to jump back and out of the way of the incoming blade.

"I must say, you're reaction time is quite impressive," Heathcliff stated, not leaving his defensive stance the whole time.

Lerouge let out a snort and replied, "Thanks."

Once their brief conversation had concluded, Heathcliff immediately charged at Lerouge with blinding speed.

The raven-haired teen almost seemed prepared for the charge because when Heathcliff attempted to bash Lerouge with his shield, he simply jumped up and over the leader of the KOB, landing behind him in a crouching position.

Not wanting to give Lerouge any reprieve, Heathcliff turned around and charged at him the moment he landed.

The crowd watched Heathcliff in anticipation as he neared Lerouge. He raised his sword high in the air, ready to bring it down upon his vulnerable opponent's back, which would guarantee a win for the leader of the KOB.

"Check," Lerouge stated suddenly, turning around with stupefying speed and stabbed at Heathcliff's newly exposed stomach.

The raven-haired teen felt the beginnings of a smile grow as his blade rapidly approached the stomach of his opponent, but forced it down. Knowing that the duel would only be over when the word 'winner' was seen over his name.

And for the second time in the duel, Heathcliff's shield suddenly shifted from one position to another almost instantly, but this time it didn't stop Lerouge's attack, not even close.

But to everyone's surprise, Heathcliff's shield shattered upon impact, giving Lerouge's rapier a clear path to his stomach and this time it seemed like the blade was going to hit home.

**-Lelouch POV-**

Lelouch's let out a loud sigh at all the stares he had been receiving from Heathcliff's guildmates as he passed them. All of which knowing about the results of his with their leader.

But the raven-haired teen didn't know what had bothered them so much, Heathcliff had won the duel, but they continued to stare at him like he had won. Then again, he did come extremely close to winning.

When his blade was about to pierce his adversary's stomach, Heathcliff's sword went through his left shoulder and down his chest, doing more than enough damage to win the duel.

Losing the duel hadn't bothered him too much, Lelouch was going up against the strongest player in the game, no one had expected him to win in the first place.

Truth be told, he wasn't even fighting at his full capacity, something that Heathcliff was bound to point out at some point.

For the second time today, Lelouch found himself staring at the doors that lead inside the KOB base, waiting for them to open and reveal the same exact man.

"Hey you," Lelouch heard an unfamiliar say from behind him, turning around to see who had called him, finding a rough-looking man standing behind him with a wide smile on his face, asking, "You're that guy who almost beat Heathcliff aren't you, Lerouge right?"

To say the man looked unique would of been a gigantic understatement. The man had thick, shaggy, curly orange hair that went down his face and formed a kind of goatee.

Lelouch blinked at the question, but knowing that the man would find out who he was by asking any of his guildmates, he answered truthfully, "Yeah, that's me."

"Nice to meet you then, the name's Godfree," the man stated, extending an open hand, gesturing his want for a handshake.

Wanting to be courteous, the violet-clad swordsman firmly took Godfree's hand and shook it, replying, "Lerouge, but you already knew that."

"So what brings you to the base of the KOB, Lerouge?" Godfree asked him curiously.

"Heathcliff promised me information if I agreed to duel with him," Lelouch replied simply, "I'm simply here to collect."

"Are you talking about the information on 'Laughing Coffin'?" Godfree inquired, voice still having the same amount of curiosity.

Nodding in response, the raven-haired teen raised an eyebrow and asked, "He told you about that, huh?"

Godfree opened his mouth to respond, but was stopped by the sound of the steel doors in front of them slowly opening.

"Speak of the devil," Godfree replied, rubbing the back of his head as he continued, "I should get out of your hair and let you two speak, it was nice meeting you Lerouge, by the way."

Godfree than proceeded to let a hand out towards him, making his want for a handshake before they parted ways rather obvious.

Not wanting to seem rude, Lelouch took the hand offered him and shook it lightly before replying with a simple, "Likewise."

With that Godfree walked away from him, prompting Lelouch to turn towards the doors with just enough time to see Heathcliff's figure appear behind a crack between the said doors.

"It's nice to see you again, Lerouge," Heathcliff greeted in a curt tone, making it clear he didn't want to spend too much time speaking about this, "Come inside, we have much to talk about."

Lelouch gave a hesitant nod in response before following the leader of the KOB inside, making it clear to Heathcliff that he still didn't trust him.

The look on Heathcliff's face made it clear that he noticed the hesitation in his nod, prompting him to ask, "You don't trust me to fulfill my end of the bargain?"

"You shouldn't feel too bad about that," Lelouch began simply, a wryly smirk creeping its way onto his face as he continued, "I never trust anyone to actually do what they say they're going to do."

"Does this have something to do with whatever happened to you IRL?" Heathcliff asked curiously, "Because it's not normal to have someone so young to display such levels of distrust to their fellow man."

"Yeah, you could say that," the raven-haired teen answered simply, a small amount of irritation rising up inside of him at Heathcliff's attempt to dig into his private life in the real world, "And you act like there's something wrong with being cautious."

"I don't see anything wrong with being cautious from time to time, but there's a thin line between being cautious and being plain anti-social," Heathcliff countered, his bluntness taking me by surprise momentarily.

Lelouch knew that the man had a point. He was displaying anti-social tendencies ever since he arrived in this world, but who could blame him after all he had to go through in his previous life.

The raven-haired teen had grown up in a family where even closest family member would betray you for a better position in line for the throne. He lead a terrorist organization that would eventually sell him out to said family.

Even his best friend sold him out to his bastard father for a position as the seventh knight of the round and then unwittingly set in place the pieces of Lelouch's downfall by accidentally leading his half-brother Schneizel to him during what should have been a private meeting between the two of them.

Lelouch was even betrayed by his own mother, who should have been dead, but who ended up transferring her own consciousness into the body of a girl named Anya, allowing him to believe that she was actually dead and ended up getting shipped off to Japan a month before Britannia invaded.

Something that she was very much aware of at the time, but did nothing to stop it. Which simply meant she had abandoned them in a war zone to fend for themselves, not caring if they lived or died.

Now that he looked back on it, Lelouch noticed that he had been betrayed by almost everyone important to him at one point or another. Which meant that the caution he displayed when he talks to people who are essentially strangers could be justified to some extent.

Not wanting to stay on the topic any longer than they already did, Lelouch asked, "Are you going to give me the information you promised me or are we going to spend the entire night talking about my inability to trust people?"

"Truth be told, I'd like to get to know you better," Heathcliff replied, his tone sounding rather genuine.

"I'm flattered."

Heathcliff ignored his comment and finished, "But like you, I don't have all night so follow me please."

Lelouch let out a small sigh of exasperation and followed the leader of the KOB into his guild's domain and through hallways that were teeming with members of aforementioned guild. The raven-haired teen took note of the route they were taking and began formulating an exit strategy, not wanting to be caught with his pants down if his earlier suspicions proved to be correct.

He knew that he wouldn't be able to be killed inside the base as it was in a safe zone, but that didn't mean that the KOB couldn't corner him and force him to do something that he really didn't want to do.

Eventually, the two came to a door quite a distance from the main hallway, something that only served to increase Lelouch's earlier suspicions. He waited for Heathcliff to open the door and enter into the room beyond before following, ignoring his body's clear want to flee the situation immediately.

The room beyond the door was rather unusual, it almost had nothing inside, other than a single wooden table in the center of the room. Heathcliff immediately went over to the table and looked over to him, waiting for him to follow.

Lelouch's eyes shot around the room, looking for anything that pointed towards a trap, but walked over to Heathcliff upon finding absolutely nothing. A small trade-request appearing in front of him the moment he stepped in front of the silver-haired man.

**Trade Request**

**Sender: Heathcliff**

**Accept/Decline**

Lelouch pressed the green accept button and found two crystals placed in Heathcliff's trade-screen: on being a screen-shot crystal and the other being a message-record crystal.

The violet-clad swordsman shot a questioning look at the leader of the KOB and asked, "This is all of the information you have on 'Laughing Coffin'?"

"That is unfortunately," Heathcliff answered solemnly, "Information about the red-guild has been rather hard to get ever since they first popped up back on New Year's Eve."

"Do you know why that is?" Lelouch asked as he pressed the 'accept' button, wondering how a simple red-guild managed to elude the sight of strongest guild in all of Aincard.

"My subordinates and I have come up with a few theories," Heathcliff answered before letting out a sigh, "But nothing concrete yet."

The violet-clad swordsman opened his mouth to ask about said theories, but immediately thought better of it because he really didn't want to spend another second near Heathcliff.

Lelouch had never actually talked to Heathcliff before today, but he had heard the rumors about him and most of them made him sound like he was the epitome of perfection as a fighter.

At the time, the raven-haired teen thought that the players spreading the rumors were the man's groupies and over-exaggerated his abilities to make him sound invincible in the public's eyes. To put it simply, Lelouch was beginning to believe those rumors, especially after experiencing those abilities for himself first hand.

One of those abilities being the ability to move his shield from one place to another in less than an instant, something that was even faster than thrusting a rapier which was the most instantaneous actions a player could perform in the game and that itself was what was bugging Lelouch.

Such an action shouldn't of been possible in SAO. The system just couldn't handle that type of speed, barring some type of glitch or lag spike which would imply that Heathcliff expected all of those attacks he blocked to happen before Lelouch even attempted them.

But from what Lelouch saw during their duel, the silver-haired man was relatively caught off-guard by the attacks that the sudden position change occurred which meant that either Heathcliff had found a way to cheat or had the reaction time of a super computer.

The raven-haired teen personally believed that Heathcliff was doing the prior because the latter was almost physically impossible. Of course there could have been several other reasons that lead to the sudden spike in speed one time, but very few things could of explained it happening twice.

Lelouch was tempted to come out and ask Heathcliff about it, but immediately thought better of it since there was no guarantee that the silver-haired man wouldn't have him killed for stumbling upon his secret. And even if he decided to explain the whole thing, there would be no way of telling if he was lying or not.

_'Dammit!' _Lelouch cursed mentally, forcing himself to not frown at the situation in front of him, _'Either I call him out on it and face the real possibility of him killing me in the near future, or I don't and let him continue playing with an unfair advantage while everyone around him actually earns their keep.' _

"Lerouge, are you okay?" Heathcliff asked suddenly, forcing him out of his thoughts, "You've been staring off into space for quite awhile now."

Lelouch blinked once before replying, "Yeah, I'm fine just got caught up in some passing thoughts."

"Were you thinking about what happened during our duel earlier?" Heathcliff asked him, making the raven-haired teen's eyes widen in shock before recovering a moment later as the silver-haired man explained further, "I'm sure someone as sharp as you would be able to notice the sudden spike in my speed, so tell me what are you going to do about it?"

_'So he figured it out,' _Lelouch thought with a small amount of irritation, a small part of him being impressed of how easily Heathcliff managed to figure out he knew his little secret.

Though the question Heathcliff raised did make Lelouch think about what he was actually going to do with the information. He really only had two options: expose the man and hope that players would just believe it as the truth, or allow him to continue cheating.

Either way, Lelouch to have to greatly rely on the fact Heathcliff wasn't the type to have people assassinated so he decided upon a course of action.

"The honorable thing to do would be to expose you and let whatever happens happen," Lelouch began in a tone akin to someone alerting another of a deceased relative, "But I'm not someone who's prone to doing the honorable thing."

Heathcliff opened his mouth, but promptly shut after a second. Lelouch guessed that the silver-haired man wanted to ask him what he meant by 'not someone who's prone to doing the honorable thing' and then thought better of it.

"I see..." Heathcliff trailed of as he cupped his chin, apparently going to put a good amount of thought in his words before he continued, "Looks like I was wrong about you."

"Wrong about what exactly?" Lelouch asked curiously, wondering what he had meant by that.

"Nothing," Heathcliff answered simply, waving off the question as if it was never asked, "Anyways, I think you should be on your way now, it's getting late."

The violet-clad swordsman narrowed his eyes at Heathcliff, his ever paranoid mind wondering if the silver-haired man had planned something.

"It is getting pretty late," Lelouch agreed awkwardly, his narrowed eyes never leaving Heathcliff as he continued to speak, "I guess I'll just show myself out."

The raven-haired teen turned on a heel and immediately walked towards the door, walking a little too quickly to imply that nothing was wrong, but thankfully Heathcliff seemingly didn't notice.

Lelouch made a bee-line to the main doors the moment he stepped out of the room, not wanting to stay around if Heathcliff had planned something. Surprisingly, he didn't run into one complication on his way to the doors, something he didn't know to take as a good or bad sign.

The moment he reached the doors, the violet-clad swordsman equipped a corridor crystal, a crystal that could teleport a player anywhere just as long the player had set the crystal to a marked location the player had been in previously, and held it out in front of him.

"Corridor open," Lelouch stated, activating the crystal, prompting the usual blue pixels to begin forming around him.

But before the pixels fully enveloped him, the teen took a glance over his shoulder and let a thought run through his mind, _'Looks like 'Laughing Coffin' aren't the only people I'm going to have keep an eye on from now on, isn't that right Heathcliff?' _

**-End-**

That's it folks. I'm sorry that you all hate me now after seeing the quality of this chapter. It really isn't my best work at all, probably because I suck at dialogue only scenes and there were a lot of dialogue scenes in these chapters.

Anyway I'm sorry for making the chapter shorter than the others, but most filler chapters are going to be like this. But I promise the next chapter will be much longer than this.

Still SAO 2 comes out close to this date, go watch it now!

Review, follow, favorite and everything in between. See you guys next time!

Also happy fourth of July! USA! USA! USA!


	5. Chapter 4: Seeds of Destruction

Yo, what's up guys and welcome to the fifth chapter of Complete Immersion. Yeah, you guys are still here after the train wreck of the last chapter. I'm seriously sure that I lost about three favorites, but hey what are you going to do?

So thankfully I get to back to the main story line, well not exactly. This chapter actually happens after episodes six and seven of the anime.

So how have you guys been enjoying SAO 2? Has been pretty good so far and the animation looks like it has improved since the first SAO, don't you agree?

Also big news for this story, it cracked top 50 in terms of favs in both categories, which is incredible. Also we've just hit 200 favs on this story, which is a really big number. Thanks to all of you for your support!

Hopefully, this chapter does better than the one before. Anyways tell me what you guys feel about this chapter and do the usual stuff if you liked it. Also once this is up I'm opening up a poll that will basically ask what you felt for this chapter, go to my profile and vote. It'll be open for as long as this latest chapter so go vote now!

Anyways, thanks for the support and I'll see you after the usual response to your reviews, then the mandatory disclaimer. So see you guys on the other side.

**NeoNazo356: About the duel between Heathcliff and Lelouch, that would've been the case with some of the sharper audience members, but you have to take in consideration that all of this is happening really quickly so some might of missed it in the blur.**

**And on the topic of Laughing Coffin, the guild only popped up around a month before the events of last chapter so in some ways that scarcity is legitimate, but at the same time he doesn't want to force the issue on the situation. So use that information as you see fit. **

**KO: I can't say too much about his future skills because that would pretty much spoil the whole surprise. **

**MistyNocturne: Thanks for the support, I have never seen so much optimism in my work... ever. Do I think I deserve it? No, but it's nice to see people don't want me to burn in hell for my work and don't worry, I don't plan on abandoning this story any time in the future. It's like my child and I would never abandon my child.**

**Akira Strider: Only 'not bad'? *Cries into my cry pillow***

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

-I don't own either Code Geass or Sword Art Online-

**-Chapter 4: Seeds of Destruction-**

Lelouch looked down at the map in front of him and watched as a plan began unfolding itself in front of him. He made sure to take every variable into account so that they wouldn't be caught off-guard if something unexpected happened during the boss fight. He had even come up with back-up plans for his back-up plans.

Once he was sure that every variable had been accounted for, Lelouch opened his mouth to bring the other clearers' attention onto him, but was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a hand slamming into stone.

"We'll lure him to the village!" Asuna said in a voice just loud enough for everyone to hear, "That's how we'll get the boss!"

Everyone around the room gasped at the statement, clearly shocked that Asuna would even suggest doing such a thing, well everyone other than him.

It wasn't a bad plan by any means, but leading the boss to the village would ultimately make it kill the NPC villagers, which was rather unsettling for everyone since most players saw the NPC's as actual people instead of the lines of code they actually were.

"Are you serious?" asked Kazuto, who had been standing next to him for the majority of the briefing, "If we lead it to the village, it'll start killing the villagers!"

"Yeah, that's the idea," Asuna replied coldly, "We can attack it while it's focused on killing the NPC's and then kill it."

"But they're not just objects, they're different from rocks and trees they're-" Kazuto began before being cut off by Asuna.

"You think they're alive?" Asuna asked, now looking over at Kazuto with a sharp glare, "In this game, they are just objects and unlike us, if they're killed they can always re-spawn."

"Sorry, but I'm not cool with this plan," Kazuto replied, acting as though Asuna give a damn about what he thought.

"I'm in charge of this operation, okay," Asuna retorted sternly, "In case you forgot, I'm still the second-in-command of the Knights Blood Oath and you'll obey my orders, like it or not."

This prompted a glaring contest between the two that spanned a good five minutes or so. Knowing that his brother was never going to win the stand-off, Lelouch decided to step in and save the day.

"If you two are done bickering, I think I've come up with a plan that won't need the deaths of the NPC's to work," Lelouch stated loud enough for the whole room to hear, "There's a small valley just south of the boss's spawn room that's surrounded by tall hills on all sides.

If we lure it out there, we'd be able to surround it in seconds and we can just attack the thing from all sides until it dies since it's not agile enough to jump over us. We'd also have the high ground on the thing if it makes anyone feel better."

Everyone's eyes immediately shifted onto him. They probably didn't expect him to say something since he usually stayed quiet during the boss room meetings because he never really needed to.

"That valley is twice the distance away from the boss room as the village," Asuna countered, "Even though that thing isn't the fastest boss out there, it certainly is one of the largest. We would need someone fast enough to dodge its attacks and still stay close enough to it to keep it agroed. And since you fit that bill to the 't', would you like to volunteer for the position?"

"You wound me dear lady, did you seriously think I wouldn't be willing to be the bait to my own plan?" Lelouch asked her in a disappointed tone, a small smirk making its way onto his face as he continued, "After all, if the king doesn't lead how do you expect his subordinates to follow?"

"King?" Asuna repeated indignantly, "Did you forget that I'm the one in charge here?"

"Of course not, I'm simply pointing out that the king is usually the one who comes up with the plan that doesn't gets all the villagers killed in the end, not the other way around," Lelouch taunted, gaining himself a glare courtesy of every KOB member in the room and the snickers from everyone else in the room.

Asuna on the other hand looked like she wasn't even affected by the jab and stated, "Fine, you'll be the one who's assigned with leading the boss over to valley, but there's still the issue of where the rest of the clearing party is going to be positioned and how we're going to signal everyone once you get it there."

"Simple, we'll have four groups in total," Lelouch stated as he walked over to the map and placed his finger on the valley, "In terms of structure we can do it in the usual fashion, tanks up in front, heavy hitters behind them, and the more agile players in the back just in case it does try to jump over us."

"What do we do if the boss notices the one of the other groups and attacks it while they're waiting for your signal?" Asuna asked curiously.

"Then they'll have to try to lure it into the valley themselves," Lelouch answered curtly, "The other groups will have to spread out and surround it while they get back into position."

"I don't mean to interrupt, but what are we supposed to do if we aren't able to lure it into the valley?" asked a random player, causing a few murmurs in the crowd.

"Then lure it back towards the village and have the three fastest players in the group alert the other groups," Lelouch explained before letting out a sigh, "The NPC's should buy us more than enough time to get into position to attack. If even that isn't possible try to hold it out while the rest of us get to you."

"Don't you think that's a little too risky?" asked another member of the clearers, "I don't like having a bunch of NPC's kill as much as the next guy, but at least with that plan we don't have to risk putting ourselves in that much danger."

"_Yeah, that's true."_

"_The guy's right, we should just go ahead and lure the boss to the village." _

"_Who cares about a bunch of NPC's anyway, I'm not going to die just because someone doesn't want to kill a bunch of programs."_

The violet-clad swordsman let out a frustrated sigh at the sudden interruption. A small part of him wondering how he went from being someone no one dared to interrupt to THIS.

"Quiet!" Asuna snapped, gaining the attention of everyone in the room, "I'm going to make this clear to everyone; I'm **still** in charge here so I'm the only one who's going to make decisions on our strategy, got it?"

Seeing that no one was going to speak with Asuna looking like she was going to maul anyone stupid enough to say something to death, Lelouch asked in the politest tone possible, "Yeah we understand, so what's the plan?"

Asuna shot a glare at him before taking in a deep breath and answered, "We're going to do it your way and try to lure it into the valley."

Lelouch noticed that several players had opened their mouths to retort, but none of them spoke. Probably because Asuna still looked extremely angry, but still a lot less angry than before.

The raven-haired teen glanced over at his brother and saw that he was smiling at the fact he wouldn't have to kill any NPC's any time soon. But then again, he could have been happy that he wasn't the one who had to speak up against that orange-haired she-devil.

"This meeting's over," Asuna stated loudly, "I strongly suggest that most of you get your armor and weapons checked before we start the raid. Also any help with clearing the dungeon would be greatly appreciated. We'll meet back in five days for the raid, I'll see you then."

The violet-clad swordsman took a step away from the board and let out a nostalgic sigh. This meeting reminding him of the early days of the Black Knights. The days where they still didn't fully trust him as their leader and would question any questionable order he made.

Lelouch looked up and saw that Asuna was still glaring at him, though she averted her eyes the moment he saw her glaring. He shook his head and walked over to Kazuto, who was waiting for him by the exit.

"Thanks for the save," Kazuto said the moment Lelouch reached him.

"Don't mention it," Lelouch replied with a small smile, "Someone had to take her down a peg, right?"

Kazuto shook his head and let out a sigh as he stated, "Yeah, but I never thought it would be you."

Lelouch didn't know whether that was compliment or an insult, but he decided to ignore it for now.

"Well I'm going to take Asuna's advice and have my equipment checked before the boss fight," Lelouch began before raising his fist up in front of him as he continued, "You remember the spot we're meeting at right?"

"Yeah, I do," his brother replied, bringing his fist up to meet his.

**-A Month Later-**

**(AN: Didn't you just hate it when they did that in the anime?)**

Lelouch's eyes shot open at the sound of something knocking on wood. He took a moment to glance at the watch on his HUD before sitting up in his bed. It took a moment for him to realize that someone had been knocking on his front door and that whoever it was wasn't going to leave until he answered it.

The raven-haired teen glanced up towards the watch on his HUD and let out a sigh upon seeing that it was only now nearing six o'clock in the morning. He already knew that it was Kazuto, which was a safe bet to make considering he was the only person who knew where he lived.

Pulling himself out of his bed, Lelouch navigated his way through the small one-bedroom apartment that he been calling his home for the past couple months. He knew that he could easily afford a bigger, better home with all the loot he collected, but he never thought it was necessary since he only came home to sleep after a long day of grinding.

As he neared the door, Lelouch began to wonder why his brother came to his doorstep instead of just sending him a message like he always did and that lead him to wonder why Kazuto hadn't even sent him a message that said he was on his way. It made him wonder if something had went wrong.

Lelouch immediately shook the idea out of his head as he placed his hand on the doorknob, knowing that he was probably just overreacting to the whole situation.

Turning the knob and pulling the door open, the raven-haired teen found a familiar pair of brown eyes staring up at him from underneath an even more familiar hood.

Lelouch immediately let out a sigh and asked, "What do you want Argo?"

"I think the question you should be asking is: how do you knew where I live?" Argo replied casually, seemingly not caring that she woke him up at six o'clock in the morning.

"I'm guessing Kirito told you where I lived since there's no way you followed me home without me noticing you at some point," Lelouch grumbled in an attempt to make his irritation clear to the girl, "So I repeat myself, what do you want?"

"Would it kill you to lighten up?" Argo grumbled sarcastically under her breath, but he was still able to hear it.

He could of called her out on it, but an argument was the last thing he needed at this time in the morning so he ignored the comment.

Stepping to the side of the door, Lelouch stated, "Come on in, we can talk more inside."

Argo didn't hesitate in walking past him and into the living room beyond, Lelouch watched as she looked around the apartment before taking a seat one of the two chairs at the piece of wood on legs he called a dining table.

The raven-haired teen walked over to said table, remembering to close and locking the door behind him to ensure no would be spying on their conversation, which was practically a given when you spoke with the best information broker in the game.

"So what does the all knowing Argo the Rat want from me today?" Lelouch asked as he took the seat directly across from her, flashing her a coy smile,"Knowing you it's my hard-earned Col, but since I've already given you most of that so I'm assuming you're after the clothes on my back."

"I'd still probably be able to turn a profit considering you wear rather pricy clothes," Argo commented, "Hell, I could probably even wear them since you have the figure of a teenage girl."

"Very original," Lelouch stated as he let out a sigh, "So witty banter aside, why are you here? I thought you would be on the upper-floors looking for information."

"I was, but I caught wind of something that I thought would greatly help your little crusade against 'Laughing Coffin'," Argo began and then continued after Lelouch gestured for her to do so, "A little birdy told me that Kirito and his new friend Asuna have been hard at work solving a murder case up on the 59th Floor."

"So it's finally happening?" Lelouch asked rhetorically as he leaned back in his seat, letting out a loud, exasperated sigh before adding, "I should have seen it coming sooner."

"Should of seen what coming?"

"Kirito and Asuna working together, I mean it happens every time a boy and girl don't get along," Lelouch deadpanned, "The two are forced to work together and soon enough they're going to be a couple because they see that the other isn't too bad or something."

Argo blinked at the statement and continued on as if he never said anything, "And apparently they were attacked by members of 'Laughing Coffin'."

Now that caught his attention, Lelouch sat up in his seat and asked, "Do you know what happened?"

"Kirito wouldn't tell me all of the details, he said something about not wanting to give away information about people's private lives," Argo began, saying the last part in a low grumble before continuing, "but I do know that they were investigating the murders of players in a safe-zone and so rumors of a ghost player out for revenge began to spread.

It turns out the players who had been killed had actually faked their deaths to lure another player out because they thought that player had killed their leader a couple months beforehand.

But when they went to go confront the alleged traitor, it turned out that he wasn't the person who killed their leader, it was actually one of their other guild mates. This guild mate actually helped them fake their own deaths and was luring the three other players into a trap so that no one would know his secret."

Lelouch raised his hand to stop her and said, "I can figure out the rest on my own."

_'So 'Laughing Coffin' takes requests, that would suggest they don't just kill players at random, but only when they want to,' _Lelouch thought, _'But this could always be a special case.'_

"Have you figured out what you're going to do about this?" Argo asked suddenly, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm going to see if Kirito or Asuna can describe some of the LC members they ran into," Lelouch explained before cupping his chin between his index and middle fingers, "Anyway, so how much do I owe you for this information?"

"You don't owe me anything."

The raven-haired teen looked up at the hooded-girl and shot her an incredulous look, simply not being able to believe the words that came out of her mouth.

"What, I'm not allowed to give information out to a friend without having some hidden agenda?" Argo huffed indignantly.

"No... of course not," Lelouch began in the most apologetic tone he could muster, "But the last time you gave me free information, I had to save Kirito from Nicholas the Renegade so forgive me for being a little cautious."

"I assure you that there's nothing wrong," Argo stated, "What kind of business woman would I be if I let one of my best customers die?"

"Not a very good one?" Lelouch offered as he stood from his seat.

"You going to meet up with Ki-bou?" the hooded-girl asked curiously, watching as Lelouch opened up his PM box.

The raven-haired teen gave a curt nod and began typing a message out to Kirito, reading: _Kirito, I need to meet with you later today. Can you meet me in Danac, by the teleport gate? -Lerouge. _

A few seconds later, Kazuto responded with: _Yeah, sure. Why for? -Kirito._

_Got a few questions to ask you, nothing too important. -Lerouge._

_Oh, alright. Is one good for you? -Kirito. _

_Yeah, I'll see you there. -Lerouge._

"I've got a couple of hours before I meet up with Kirito," Lelouch stated as he closed his menu, turning his attention back onto Argo, "Mind keeping me company until then?"

"I've got nothing better to do so I suppose I could," Argo shrugged before adding, "So what did you have in mind?"

"Before you showed up, I was going to get some breakfast and see if I could figure out the attack patterns of the common mobs on the 59th floor," Lelouch explained as he equipped most of his primary equipment, "I don't see any reason to change the plan at all now that you're here."

"Breakfast and getting information on the newest mobs?" Argo repeated as she stood from her seat, "You really know how to treat a woman, don't you Lerouge."

The raven-haired teen smirked at the statement as he replied, "Come on, we should get going."

* * *

><p>Lelouch let out a loud, exasperated sigh at the situation he found himself in. Once again, he found himself sitting on a wooden bench, waiting for someone with information he needed to show up.<p>

_'At least it's not raining,' _Lelouch thought as he looked up at the cloudless sky above him with a small smile.

Seeing that he had nothing better to do at the moment, the raven-haired teen pondered doing something he had only done once before: look into the memories of his other half or in other words, this world's Lelouch.

Of course, Lelouch had seen snippets of his other half's life in the past two years, but it was never a conscious decision on his part. A memory would instantly pop into his head whenever he found himself in a situation where he needed to remember something from his past, so he never needed to dig through them before and he wasn't one to do things that weren't absolutely necessary.

Letting out a reluctant sigh, the raven-haired teen shook the thought out of his head.

"This isn't the time or place," Lelouch muttered to himself quietly, "You can worry about the real world when you're back in it."

"What was that about the real world?" Lelouch jumped at the sound of his brother's voice.

The violet-clad swordsman berated himself for getting so immersed in his thoughts that he couldn't even notice Kazuto's rather obvious approach.

"You shouldn't do that," Lelouch grumbled bitterly before turning his head towards his brother, "You could give someone a heart attack and if I die in this game, I'd rather not do so because of something like that."

"Sorry," his messy-haired brother offered as he sat down on the bench next to him, then a small smirk spread across his face as he added with soft chuckle, "You should've seen your face, it was priceless."

Shaking his head, Lelouch let out a sigh and countered with, "So you and Asuna, huh?"

Kazuto's face immediately paled at the mention of the orange-haired girl's name, which obviously meant Argo hadn't been lying to him about his brother and Asuna's little adventure together.

"H-how did you..." Kazuto trailed off before his eyes widened in realization, exclaiming, "DAMMIT ARGO!"

The volume of Kazuto's response almost made Lelouch break out laughing, but he was able to restrain himself to a soft snicker and a triumphant smile. Surprisingly, no one around them seemed to notice the exchange, probably because they all were too caught up in whatever they were doing to care about the antics of a couple teenage boys.

"You know it's nothing to be ashamed of," Lelouch said teasingly, "Do you know how many people would kill to be in your position right now?"

"We're nothing like that," his brother replied in a low grumble, "We helped each other solve a murder case and we added each others friends list, that's it."

"You two became friends by solving a murder case?" Lelouch asked with mock disbelief, "That sounds like the set-up to one of those cliché cop-drama shows on TV."

"Whatever," Kazuto grumbled, "You said you wanted to ask me a couple questions earlier, right?"

"Yeah, I had a few questions about you and Asuna's investigation," Lelouch explained to Kazuto, who simply gestured for him to ask away, "Argo told me that you ran into a few members of 'Laughing Coffin', is that true?"

"We did, but not much happened," Kazuto began before explaining further, "They made a few threats, but they scrammed the moment I said that there were reinforcements on their way to back us up."

His brother let out a small chuckle before adding, "It was a good thing they didn't realize that I was bluffing or who knows what would've happened."

"You still probably would of beat them," Lelouch sighed indifferently, "Though I suspect not everyone would of lived once everything was all said and done."

There was a time where saying something like that with such indifference would have set his brother off, but now he only nodded in solemn acceptance, though Lelouch really didn't know if that was for the best or not.

It gave him comfort to know that Kazuto knew that he was going to do what he had to do to survive, but at the same time...

"Hey Lerouge," Kazuto called out to him suddenly, pulling the raven-haired teen out of his thoughts, "Why are you looking for information on LC in the first place?"

"The same reason as everyone else: I want them gone," Lelouch stated before breathing in and adding, "With enough evidence, I can convince some of the clearing guilds that they're a problem that **needs** to be dealt with right now, it's the only way to ensure no one else dies at their hands."

"That's not what I meant, I want to know why," Kazuto replied, "No offense, but you're not someone who normally does that kind of thing without an incentive."

The raven-haired teen opened his mouth to answer, but promptly closed it upon realizing he didn't have an answer to give.

Lelouch didn't have a reason. He wasn't doing this because it was the right thing to do or for any physical incentive. He simply felt that LC need to be brought down and that was more than enough incentive for him.

"Do I really need one to justify bringing down an orange-guild?" Lelouch asked his brother curiously, gaining a surprised blink from his brother.

"No," Kazuto began as he smiled suddenly, "I guess you don't."

The raven-haired teen was about to ask what his brother why he had been smiling when he noticed a familiar face approaching the two of them.

"Asuna?" Kazuto asked as she stood in front of them, "What are you doing here, I thought you were supposed to be reporting to Heathcliff today."

"I was, but something came up and Heathcliff had to cancel," Asuna answered in what had to be the friendliest tone Lelouch had ever heard her use, she sent a brief glance his way before returning her attention onto Kazuto, "So what's going on with you?"

"Nothing much," Kazuto replied with a shrug, "Lerouge and I were just having a little chat about what happened yesterday. You're welcome to join us if you want, I'm sure you can help explain it better than I ever could."

_'Damn you and your weakness to women Kazuto,' _Lelouch cursed as he noticed Asuna looking at him with a questioning look.

"You don't mind?" Asuna asked him, shifting back to her usual stoic tone.

The raven-haired thought it over for a moment before letting out a loud sigh and replying, "I guess it wouldn't hurt to get another perspective on the situation."

His brother immediately moved closer to him to make enough room on the bench for Asuna, who promptly sat down in the space provided.

"I'm guessing you already know the basics of what happened, correct?" Asuna asked as she sat down, prompting the raven-haired teen to nod in response, "So was there anything specific you wanted to know about?"

"The LC members you ran into," Lelouch answered curtly, "Did you happen to get a look at them from underneath their hoods?"

Asuna thought it over for a moment before shaking her head, prompting Lelouch to ask his next question, "Did they do anything that seemed off to you?"

"No, they pretty much acted like the blood-thirsty psychos we all know them as," Asuna answered as she shook her head once again.

"The player you arrested for murder," Lelouch began before taking in a deep breath and continuing, "Did they mention how they were able to contact members of a guild made up of said blood-thirsty psychos without getting themselves killed?"

"No unfortunately, it didn't seem important at the time so I forgot to ask before throwing him in jail," Asuna deadpanned, completely letting the fact that the killer was male slip without noticing.

"It's more important than you may think," Lelouch replied in the same deadpan tone, gaining a confused look from both of his companions.

"What do you mean?" Kazuto asked curiously.

A small frown spread across the raven-haired teen's face at the question as he explained, "The fact that they took a job from a player outside of their ranks means that they don't just go around killing people from left to right like we all thought, though I don't really know if that's a good or a bad thing.

On one hand, it means that someone's not going to die from simply coming into contact with a member of LC, but that only confirms the idea that a good amount of the guild's members are killing people for their own personal gain rather than mental instability like everyone makes them out to be."

The raven-haired teen glanced over towards his companions to make sure they were following his train of thought and he decided to explain it further upon seeing a small amount of confusion on their faces, "Someone who's mentally unstable is easier to read and when someone's easy to read, you can predict the person's course of action before they even think of it themselves."

"So you're basically saying that it's harder to find information on LC because they're not all crazy, right?" Kazuto asked after thinking about it for a moment, basically summing up all of what he just said in a much less complicated manner.

Lelouch simply nodded in response to his brother's question. A small part of him was surprised to find himself frowning at the statement. Something about the notion of him preferring insanity over rationality bothered him, but then again that should've been expected from someone like him.

The violet-clad swordsman let out an almost silent chuckle as he ran a gloved hand through his hair. He stood from the bench and turned to his two companions and asked, "Do you guys want to see my apartment?"

The two blinked and raised their eyebrows at the random question, prompting Lelouch to run his fingers down the sides of his chin and add in hopes that Kazuto would recognize the signal he gave, "My cooking skill is almost maxed out so I could treat you guys to lunch if you want."

Fortunately for Lelouch, his brother nodded at the statement and replied with, "I would love too. How about you Asuna?"

Kazuto glanced over at Asuna with a stern look and mouthed the words: 'go along with it'.

The orange-haired girl raised an eyebrow at Kazuto before she nodded hesitantly.

"Follow me," Lelouch stated, a fake smile gracing his lips as he equipped a teleport crystal. The raven-haired teen waited for his companions to equip their own crystals before activating his, "Teleport: Floor 49: Myujen."

* * *

><p>"Can either of you explain to me what we're doing here?" Asuna asked as the trio reached the front door of Lelouch's apartment.<p>

The raven-haired teen reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the key to his home. He pushed the key into its proper hole and pushed the door open, gesturing for the two to follow him inside.

As expected, Kazuto walked inside without batting an eye. Asuna on the other hand was more hesitant to enter the home of a relative stranger, but she entered after a few moments.

Once Asuna was inside, the violet-clad swordsman closed the door and locked it.

"Welcome to casa de Lerouge," Lelouch stated as he turned to face his companions.

"This is where you live?" Asuna asked as he looked around the small apartment, "I kind of expected more."

The raven-haired teen let out an indignant snort and countered with, "I don't like spending col on things that I don't really need. I mean, why buy a big house when you could buy information on an upcoming boss or a much needed weapon upgrade?"

"I can see the reasoning behind that," Asuna deadpanned as she sat down on the lone couch in the living room, "So why are we here anyway? Because I highly doubt it's because you wanted to make us lunch."

Lelouch opened his mouth to answer, but Kazuto beat him to the draw, "He thinks someone was listening in on our conversation earlier."

Asuna turned her attention onto Kazuto and shot him a questioning look, prompting the teen in question to explain what just happened, "Do you remember when Lerouge stroked his chin earlier?" Asuna nodded. "You see, when the two of us were younger; we made up a bunch of signals that would look like nothing more than random movement to someone who didn't know, but means something entirely different to either of us."

"Impressive," the orange-haired girl deadpanned before adding, "And I'm guessing that a stroke of your chin means: 'someone's listening in on our conversation', right?"

"Exactly," Kazuto answered as he flashed a proud smirk, prompting the orange-haired girl to flash her own.

Sensing that this conversation was going to go off topic, Lelouch cleared his throat to get his companions' attention back onto him and said, "If you two don't mind me interrupting your little conversation, that wasn't the only reason I brought you here."

The statement immediately shifted their attention onto him, prompting the raven-haired teen to explain, "This isn't the first time I've seen someone watching me, whoever it is has been watching me since the beginning of the week and I'd rather not spend my time out of the safe-zones looking over my shoulder."

"Do you think it could be 'Laughing Coffin'?" Kazuto asked with a strange mix of curiosity and worry in his voice.

"No, I don't think so," Lelouch replied dryly, "Knowing their MO as much as I do, they should have attacked me at some point, but I wouldn't rule them out entirely."

"Who else would be spying on you then?" Asuna asked curiously, "You've been looking for information rather openly, maybe someone tipped them off to your snooping?"

"That is the most logical explanation, but that doesn't explain why they haven't made their move yet," Lelouch countered, "And besides, the most logical explanation tends to be the wrong one in these situations."

It was a strange truth that plagued Lelouch ever since the moment he died and got put into this world, but since they usually worked out in his favor so he never really saw it fit to question it.

"And besides, we'll know who it is soon enough," Lelouch added simply. His two companions blinked at the statement owlishly, prompting the violet-clad swordsman to explain further, "I have a plan to draw whoever it is into a trap and I'd like to have your two's help."

"Well you can count me in," Kazuto replied immediately.

"Was there really any doubt?" Lelouch asked his brother rhetorically before turning towards Asuna, "The only real person here in question is you: Ms. Second-in-Command of the KOB. What do you say, would you like to help me catch a stalker?"

As expected, the orange-haired girl took a moment to think the offer over before replying, "Sure, I'll come along."

The raven-haired teen shot her a bewildered look, a small part of him not expecting her to just go along with the idea. Hell, he even expected her to flat-out reject the idea altogether and he wouldn't care because Kazuto would be more than enough for his plan.

Lelouch had only asked Asuna because having the second-of-command of the strongest guild in Aincrad would help push the bill against his stalker and make it easier for him to get information out of whoever decided to spy on him.

"Don't look so surprised," Asuna retorted indignantly, "The last thing I need is two members of my assault team dying and besides…" she smirked. "...it's not like I have anything better to do."

The raven-haired teen glanced over at his brother to see Kazuto's reaction, just to see the messy-haired teen shrug at him.

"Alright then…" Lelouch trailed off, shaking his head in disbelief as he added, "Here's what we'll do."

* * *

><p>'<em>There you are,' <em>Lelouch thought as he glanced over at the same hooded-figure that had been following him for the past couple days, an almost unnoticeable smirk gracing his lips, '_Let's see what you look like under that hood of yours.'_

The raven-haired teen continued to walk down the crowded street before him, weaving through the crowd of people seamlessly. Lelouch forced down the smirk that threatened to rise to the surface when he saw the gate leading out of the safe-zone growing closer.

'_Phase one: completed,' _Lelouch thought as he took a short glance back in the direction of the stalker to make sure he was still being followed before walking through the gate, a brief thought running through his mind as he did so, '_Now moving to phase two.' _

The raven-haired teen walked continued walking down the path in front of him, mentally counting down the steps he was taking towards the ambush point. He took one last glance behind him and saw the hooded-figure following in the ruins of the abandoned ruins running along the path, probably thinking they were well hidden behind the rubble.

'_Three… two… one, now may the pieces fall where they may,' _Lelouch thought as he stopped abruptly, reaching for one of the throwing picks that he kept underneath his coat and then in one swift motion, he spun around and threw the pick towards the hooded-figure.

As expected, the pick landed in a wall near the hooded-figure's position.

"Whoever you are out there watching me…" Lelouch called out as he placed a hand on the hilt of his rapier, "I'd very much appreciate it if you'd come out and face me."

The violet-clad swordsman smirked when he saw a hooded-figure come out from the ruins, prompting him to add, "Thank you, now could you please tell me why you've been following me?"

The figure made no reply, whoever they were simply stared at him from underneath their hood, though something seemed off about the person. They were calm, too calm for Lelouch's liking.

'_Is it possible you've expected this from me beforehand,' _Lelouch mused internally, '_You probably even know that I have allies waiting in the shadows to help with the ambush.' _

But before he could finish the thought, Lelouch was ripped away from his thought when the figure began approaching him. The raven-haired teen frowned at the action slightly, but made no move to stop them.

Lelouch watched the figure as it approached through narrow eyes, looking for anything that may point to a threat and he noticed something odd about the figure as it approached, the person underneath the hood was slightly shorter than he first expected. But that seriously could have meant a number of things and that was really the last thing on his mind at the moment, so he tossed the thought aside for the moment.

The raven-haired teen scanned the figure ruins around the figure, looking for anything that may indicate some kind of hidden threat.

'_Nothing,' _Lelouch noted mentally.

It wasn't the sense of danger that had concerned Lelouch, no it was the distinct lack of it that put him on edge, but he forced the thought to the side for the moment when he realized that the figure was about to reach the designated location.

'_And with this...' _Lelouch thought as he took his hand off of the hilt of his rapier and onto something placed behind it, '_I call check.' _

The moment the figure reached the designated point, Lelouch's arm shot out from underneath his coat and out to his side, immediately drawing the figure's attention onto said arm. The hooded-figure was so distracted by the action, that his stalker completely failed to notice the small black orb that had shot out of his hand during the motion and had landed a foot in front of them until it was too late.

Thick black smoke erupted from the crushed orb and completely consumed the hooded-figure in seconds.

The raven-haired teen watched the smoke slowly dissipate to reveal the same hooded-figure standing in the same exact location, head still fixated on his gloved hand, but Lelouch could feel their eyes glaring at him from underneath their hood.

"You're trying to figure out why you can't move," Lelouch told his stalker as he approached the figure casually, pulling out another black orb from his coat.

"This…" he began as he tossed it up in their and caught it once again to mock the figure, "...is a smoke bomb filled with an air-borne variant of paralysis poison and trust me when I say that it's more than enough to keep you there for a good while, so I suggest that you cooperate..."

The violet-clad swordsman placed the smoke bomb back into his coat and snapped his fingers loudly, prompting Kazuto and Asuna to come out of their hiding places in the ruins, completely covered head-to-toe in the hooded robes he had provided them.

"...unless you want to deal with my associates here," Lelouch finished with a pleasant demeanor.

On surface level, Lelouch seemed calm and collected. In fact, he looked like nothing in the world would be able phase him in that moment, but the same couldn't be said about what was happening on the inside. His mind was going into overdrive thinking up escape plan after escape plan, making sure the three of them were covered if the next phase of his plan didn't work out like he had expected.

With one last scan of the surrounding area, the former emperor closed the distance between him and his stalker with Kazuto and Asuna in tow.

Placing his hand on the hood, Lelouch slipped it off of the figure's head with a light pull, revealing the person underneath it and what he found surprised him quite a bit.

There standing before him was a girl that didn't look a day older than himself and if it wasn't for the fact that she had been stalking for him the past week, he would of considered her long black hair, heart-shaped face, and sea-blue eyes quite attractive.

But seeing that he wasn't completely hormone-driven like other men his age, Lelouch pressed on with the interrogation, "The poison won't stop you from speaking so I'll ask you again, why were you following me?"

The eyes of the paralyzed girl flashed with uncertainty as she answered with, "I needed to make sure that you were the person I was looking for and it looks like you are."

At this point, Lelouch was beginning to regret paralyzing the girl, but not because he was convinced that she wasn't doing anything wrong. No, he regretted it was because her paralysis made it almost impossible to gauge her feelings towards this whole ordeal. She could've been shaking in her boots and he would've been none the wiser.

Fortunately, Lelouch knew of the one body part that always gave away one's true feelings: the eyes.

The former emperor had learned this during a chess match with his half-brother Schneizel when he was younger and still a Britannian Prince.

For the first time ever, Lelouch was beating his brother and was only a few moves away from trapping the enemy king. He was so giddy with excitement that he had to physically force himself to keep a straight face so he wouldn't tip off Schneizel to his imminent defeat.

But it all turned out for naught because a turn after his realization, Schneizel turned the tables on him completely and beat him once again. His younger-self had been devastated and demanded to know how his brother had beaten him.

Schneizel asked him in response: "_Do you know what they say about the eyes, Lelouch?" _

"_No, but what does that have to do with the match?" _

"_Everything young brother, everything for they say that the eyes are the portal to the soul." _

It had taken a few moments for Lelouch's eight year old mind to realize what his half-brother had meant by that. Schneizel had basically told him that even though he had managed to keep a straight face throughout the entirety of their match, he had gotten too cocky and allowed the excitement he felt leak into his eyes, tipping his brother off to the fact that he was going to win.

And when the raven-haired teen looked into the eyes of his paralyzed hostage, he saw a mix of uncertainty and determination, but not fear.

'_So she's actually telling me the truth,' _Lelouch thought as he equipped an antidote crystal and aimed it at the girl, '_Good, that makes what's going to happen next go by much easier.' _

Lelouch opened his mouth to say the word necessary to activate the crystal, but was stopped when a hand suddenly clamped around his wrist and pulled on it so that he dropped the crystal.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," an unfamiliar male voice told him in a calm, confident voice, prompting a sudden numbing sensation to run through his entire body, "You wouldn't want to do something you'd regret."

The raven-haired teen immediately tried to reach for the hilt of his rapier, but stopped upon realizing that he couldn't move his arm. Hell, he couldn't even turn his head to face the man next to him.

"So you're the guy that's been snooping around our affairs, huh?" the man said, sounding a little disappointed, "From what I heard about you, I thought you were going to be a challenge to kill, but this is just disappointing."

The man tisked as he stepped in front of the raven-haired teen, revealing yet another figure with his face hidden by a hood, but unlike this time he knew exactly what the figure wanted from him: him and his friends dead.

'_One man...' _Lelouch thought as he began to giggle uncontrollably.

"Hm, what's so funny?" the figure asked him curiously.

"You are!" Lelouch exclaimed through a break in his giggling, "You actually think you have ME beat!"

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I do have you beat," the man replied, sounding a little confused by the situation, "You and your two companions back there are all paralyzed and by the time it wears off, you're all going to be dead."

To anyone else, this would've been taken as a serious threat on their lives, but to someone like Lelouch this was nothing more than a joke. A joke he found really, really funny, which was evident when he began laughing like a complete mad man.

The man let out a dark chuckle as he pulled a dagger out from his belt, telling him, "You know what, I'm actually starting to feel bad about having to kill you."

"You're not turning soft on me are you?" Lelouch joked as his laughing subsided.

"No, of course not," the figure replied, beginning to sound a little amused himself, "That would be rather unprofessional of me, I simply find it refreshing to meet someone who doesn't begin begging for their lives or making empty death threats the moment they know my intention."

"I wonder why they would do something like that," the violet-clad swordsman replied sarcastically.

The unknown man smirked underneath his hood and raised, "Yes, death is a very scary thing, isn't it? So what makes you so different?"

Feigning ignorance, Lelouch raised an eyebrow at the question, prompting an explanation from the man, "You're speaking face to face with a man who stated outright that he wants to kill you and to make matters worse, you have no physical way of defending yourself.

Any normal person would either be quaking in their boots in fear or extremely pissed that they were going to die in such a pathetic fashion, but you on the other hand laugh in your potential killer's face and confidently proclaim that you aren't beat yet."

"I wonder… could you be planning something that I'm not aware of?" The man trailed off as he pulled a bulky-looking broadsword out from a sheath on his belt, placing the tip of the blade right onto his neck, "Or are you not afraid to die?"

Lelouch didn't respond, he simply continued to stare at the hooded-man before him, the same confident smirk still spread across his face.

"Not going to answer?" the man asked coldly as he pulled the sword away from Lelouch's throat, readying the blade for a swing, "Fine then… I'll just make you answer!"

"Heal!" the raven-haired teen's two companions yelled out simultaneously, confusing the hooded-man long enough for the pair to unsheathe their blades and burst forward, moving so fast that the man hardly had enough time to blink before their blades were linked at his neck.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Kazuto stated in a mocking tone, parroting the man's words from before, "You wouldn't want to do something you'd regret."

The man let out a bitter chuckle at the rather obvious jab by the black-clad swordsman, but made no attempt to respond to it. Instead, the hooded-man continued stare at a still paralyzed Lelouch with a small smirk on his lips.

Lelouch returned the man's gaze as he equipped another antidote crystal, prompting him to mutter, "Heal."

The crystal took effect immediately, cleansing his body of the paralysis poison the man had injected into him.

The violet-clad swordsman let out a relieved sigh as regained control of his body once again, not particularly enjoying the helpless feeling being paralyzed gave him, but then again, who did?

"Looks like I was right, you were planning something," the man said, sounding a little impressed by the sudden turning of the tables, "I'm guessing that you equipped your two friends here with antidote crystals and had them hide them beneath their cloaks, so you would be ready if I came out and paralyzed you."

Lelouch let out an amused snort, but decided against prolonging the conversation any further. He still needed to interrogate the girl who had been stalking him for a week and the last thing he needed was to have yet another lengthy conversation with the man.

The raven-haired teen circled around the three so that he was standing directly behind the hooded-man and equipped a corridor crystal.

Aiming the crystal at the man, Lelouch said, "Corridor open."

The hooded-man opened his mouth to say something, but he never even got a word out before a swarm of blue pixels began swarming the around man, quietly consuming the man until he was completely gone.

"Well that settles that," Kazuto said as he returned his sword to its sheath on his back, a triumphant smile spread across his face.

The raven-haired teen smiled a little at his brother's rather casual sounding tone after being temporarily held captive by a member of the most dangerous PK guilds in Aincrad.

It was comforting to see his brother being more comfortable in life and death situations.

Kazuto had never outright panicked at the sight of danger, but he never seemed entirely comfortable either. He was always floating somewhere in middle of the two, but ever since the death of the Black Cats, Kazuto had become more and more accustom to the pressure, which bothered Lelouch greatly.

The former emperor knew that having the ability to keep one's composure in dire situations was ultimately a good thing to have, but he once again had to ask himself: "at what cost?"

Reminding himself of the task at hand, Lelouch decided to shove the subject aside for the time being as it definitely wasn't the worst thing that could happen to his brother.

Letting out a quiet sigh, the raven-haired teen knelt down and picked up the antidote crystal he had dropped earlier.

'_Looks like that whole exchange took a little over five minutes,' _Lelouch thought as he stood back up, '_A couple more minutes and the poison would've ware off.'_

Turning around to face the girl he had paralyzed, Lelouch was some what surprised to see that she was sporting a small smile on her lips.

'_Why didn't she run away while I was dealing with my ambusher?' _Lelouch asked himself mentally, '_Does she not have an antidote crystal on her? No, they're not too hard to come by anymore. _

_Maybe she's planning something… No, she would've sprung the trap long before I teleported that man to Black Iron Palace so that she could get the drop on all of us.' _

Many more thoughts ran through his mind as Lelouch raised the crystal up to the girl, opening his mouth to utter the words that would heal her of the paralysis he had inflicted upon her, but was once again interrupted. Luckily for him, it wasn't some unexpected new comer that had stopped him, but the girl herself.

"That won't be necessary," the girl said politely as she reached up and lightly grabbed onto his hand, pulling it away from her, "You know, since I'm not paralyzed anymore."

The former emperor let out a snort of amusement at the act before replying, "So you're not paralyzed after all."

"No, I used an antidote crystal the moment Ezra came out and ambushed you," the girl explained as she released his hand from her grip.

"You two knew each other then?" Lelouch asked the girl curiously, head tilted slightly to emphasize the feeling.

"Of course, he and I are guildmates after all," the girl deadpanned casually.

The former emperor could feel Asuna and Kazuto tense up behind him and he really couldn't blame them either. The girl standing an arm's length away from him had just admitted that she was a member of LC, the most notorious PK guild in all of SAO, so their concern was definitely warranted.

But even with this revelation, Lelouch still couldn't bring himself to think of the girl as a threat.

And no it wasn't something as stupid as him having a gut feeling.

Why didn't she reveal herself the moment Ezra ambushed him, or when he teleported the man to Black Iron Palace, and why would she tell him this in the first place if she was actually out to get him?

There were too many unanswered questions for Lelouch to trust the girl completely, but he if knew one thing it was that this girl was no immediate threat to him.

"Pardon me asking, but if you're a member of LC like you say you are, why are you still here?" Lelouch asked curiously.

"I wanted to ask you a question, that's all," the girl replied bluntly.

The raven-haired teen blinked at the statement, taken off-guard by the bluntness in the girl's voice, before letting out a soft snort of amusement and replied with, "Then ask away."

"Do you remember a girl that went by the screen name Lux?" the girl asked curiously.

'_Lux?' _Lelouch repeated mentally.

The name had sounded familiar, but he couldn't place where he heard it from. It took him a couple moments, but he was finally able to remember where he had heard that name.

"Did this Lux girl have long-blonde hair and steel-gray eyes?" Lelouch asked curiously, trying to make sure he was thinking of the right person. The girl simply nodded in response, prompting him to ask, "Why do you ask?"

"My name is Rossa, I'm a good friend of hers and she said to give you this message," the girl named Rossa explained, "She said to tell you that it's time to commit a greater evil."

The moment he head that phrase, the corners of Lelouch's lips curled upwards in a dark smirk.

'_Looks like the seeds of destruction I've planted have finally bloomed...'_

**-End-**

**Well that's it folks. **

**Sorry to leave off on a cliffhanger, but it's necessary to push the story forwards. Anyways leave a review on what you thought on the chapter and if you have any questions PM me, I'm always ready to answer questions. **

**Until next time folks, PEACE!**


	6. Chapter 5: Walking the Path

Hey guys and welcome to the fifth chapter of Complete Immersion. Thanks for all the support you guys gave me on the last chapter, it's really appreciated.

Sorry again for the cliffhanger last chapter, but I once again say that it's necessary. Anyways I'm going to resolve any lingering questions you have on the last chapter with this one.

So after I would normally respond to the reviews, but to save space for actual content on this story I'm going to respond to any reviews over PM now, which is overall a good thing since you won't have to wait a couple months for an answer to your question.

Also, I'm going to be referring to a character named Lux a lot during this chapter. Some newcomers to SAO may think I made the character, but that's not the case unfortunately. She's a character from the Girl Ops series of manga. Simply click on the link provided below to just go straight there or simply look her name up on SAO wiki to find out more about her if you don't trust me enough to not send you somewhere that'll give your computer more viruses than standing next to a dog carrying rabies.

wiki/Lux

Unfortunately there isn't one for Rossa so I'm pretty much going to have to make my own information up for her.

A quick thank you to GUNMAN666 for being the THREE-HUNDREDTH follower of this story and to Altar312 for being the THREE-HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH follower. Can't thank you guys enough for supporting this story, definitely been a dream come true to have a story be this popular.

Not much more to say so after this mandatory disclaimer, we shall start.

**-Mandatory Disclaimer-**

I don't own either Code Geass or Sword Art Online.

**-Chapter 5: Walking the Path-**

'_Looks like the seeds of destruction I've planted have finally bloomed,' _Lelouch thought with a familiar dark smirk spread across his face, which was soon replaced by a neutral expression as he shifted back to his usual business-like tone, '_But before that game starts, I need to confirm something.' _

"Tell me Rossa, how much do you know about what she and I are planning to do?" Lelouch asked the girl bluntly, not seeing any other way to bring the subject up subtly.

The girl in question blinked at him owlishly, before taking a moment to collect herself from her previous stupor before replying with, "Everything."

"Then why are you helping her?" Lelouch asked her skeptically, "If everything goes to plan, there will be nothing will be left of the guild you belong to."

"Please, I hardly see myself as one of those blood-thirsty thugs," Rossa retorted disdainfully, "My loyalty belongs to one and only one person, and that's Lux."

The raven-haired teen arched an eyebrow at the statement, he could detect a small hint of sadness in her voice as she said her friend's name. Making him wonder if something had happened between them and he was tempted to ask, but he immediately thought better of the idea.

'_It's none of your business,' _Lelouch told himself, '_The best thing for me to do is to stay out of it and let them iron out their own problems on the side.' _

"So is it safe to assume that you're with us on our little crusade?" Lelouch asked in an attempt to change the subject onto something a bit more important.

Rossa blinked and flashed him an amused smile as she countered, "Isn't the answer to that question rather obvious?"

The smile she had on proved to be infectious as the violet-clad swordsman soon found himself smiling in a similar fashion.

"I guess it is," Lelouch stated as he absentmindedly ran his hand through his hair, "Tell Lux I'll contact her when the preparations are complete, but until then you two should keep a low profile."

"Until next time then," the dark-haired girl replied before twirling around on the heel of her shoe and began walking away from him and his companions.

The former emperor watched as she did this, waiting until she was no longer within earshot to turn to his two companions and say, "I know you two have questions you want to ask me, but I suggest you save them for when we return to my apartment. I swear that I will explain everything to you two there, but I can't risk speaking this information out here in the open."

The two looked at him with bewildered expressions, clearly taken off-guard by the words he so suddenly uttered.

Surprisingly, Asuna was the first one out of the two to respond, "Fine, but you better explain everything once get there."

His brother opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when he noticed that he was outnumbered two-to-one.

"Fine," Kazuto grunted before letting out a frustrated sigh, "Lead the way."

* * *

><p>To say that the walk back to his apartment was awkward, would have been a major understatement.<p>

Not a single word was spoken the entire trip back.

It wasn't like Lelouch minded the silence, it provided him with a perfect opportunity to go over his plan one more time before he put it into action.

No, what really got to him was the attention they were getting from the other players walking the street. For whatever reason, a group of players not trying to get noticed, always got the most attention; and the last thing he needed right now was outside attention.

The sigh Lelouch let out when he walked into his apartment barely expressed the actual relief he felt to be away from the prying eyes of the general public. He often found himself comparing the feeling to having a piece of raw, bleeding meat strapped to your stomach while running through the savannahs of Africa.

Most of the animals would simply ignore the meat and go on with their business, but there was always that one animal that would follow every move the meat made, lying in wait until an opportunity to strike presented itself and then attack.

Lelouch had developed the mindset when he was younger, right after his mother's alleged murder. The moment he had seen his mother's bleeding corpse lying there on the stairway, something had changed inside of him. He could no longer trust people simply on face value anymore.

To him, everyone and everything became a threat.

C.C. had called it his biggest flaw as a person and he would be hard-pressed to find a way to prove her wrong. Lelouch could easily count the times where simply not trusting the people around him had come back to bite him in the ass.

Unfortunately, this wasn't something about himself that Lelouch could fix easily, or at all. It was something that was drilled into his very psyche.

"Okay, we're back in your apartment," Kazuto began, tone dripping with frustration as he continued, "Now can you tell me what the hell just happened back there?"

The former emperor let out a loud sigh and began his explanation, "We went out there to lure out somebody who had been following me for a week, those people turned out to be members of LC and one of those two turned out to be good friends with a girl I had met during one of my investigations a couple weeks back."

Lelouch took in a deep breath before continuing…

**-Three Weeks Ago-**

**(Note: Lelouch is NOT saying everything that happens in this flashback. He is simply giving a brief summary. This is simply so the reader will know what happened.)**

The former emperor let out a silent sigh.

'_How do I always manage to get myself into these situations?' _Lelouch asked himself rhetorically, '_And why do I keep asking that question? It's not like some mightier power's going to answer me any time soon.' _

The day had already started out quite poorly for him. He had spent the first hour of his day speaking to Argo, which wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't seen fit to swindle him out of every ounce of col he had.

Lelouch liked the girl. She was one of the only people in SAO he could consider a friend, but there were times he absolutely loathed her very existence.

He knew that it sounded harsh, but having all of his money getting taken away from him every time he needed reliable information was getting really annoying.

The next few hours hadn't gone any better for him either. He had just spent all of that time waiting in his current position for the contact Argo had pointed him towards to show up.

There was only one problem with that plan, Argo decided not to tell him much about this person. All she had really told him was that this person was a girl; had long, curly blonde hair; and that he could trust her.

It definitely wasn't the amount of information he would've liked to have before going out to meet a stranger out in the woods, but he really didn't have many other options outside of this contact, so he decided that he would just have to deal with it for now.

Upon agreeing to meet this person, Argo had told him that her contact would be meeting with him in a few hours in 'Sunshine Forest', which made him let loose a relieved sigh. The time between now and the allotted time gave him ample time to set a few things up before she arrived. Nothing special really, just a few smoke bombs buried in the dirt around the meeting spot.

Each of the bombs were filled with a special type of airborne poison he had stumbled upon while doing a quest for a NPC Potion Maker on the 47th floor. The poison was specifically designed to do no damage to the victim, instead it would render them completely immobile for a full ten minutes.

Which made it ideal for a situation like this. If Argo's contact proved herself to be a threat, all he had to do was paralyze her and any reinforcements she decided to bring, and teleport away so he could bash Argo across the head for almost him getting him killed. AGAIN.

Once the preparations were complete he waited for the contact's arrival… and waited… and waited… and waited for someone to show up. And eventually someone did.

Was it a girl? Yes.

Did she have long, curly blonde hair? Indeed.

Did he trust her? Nope, not a chance.

"So you must be Argo's contact," Lelouch had said upon her arrival, "I have to admit, it's nice to finally meet someone who shares my view about this whole 'Laughing Coffin' situation."

"Likewise, but I would've never thought that person would be the Ghost of Aincrad himself," the contact replied in a half-joking and half-serious tone.

"So you know of me?" Lelouch asked her with a half-fake curiosity.

"Do you seriously think you can almost beat the strongest player in game in one-on-one combat and not be noticed?" the girl countered rhetorically.

"Well I was hoping that the hundreds of people we were fighting in front of wouldn't notice," the raven-haired teen joked dryly, "So a little rat tells me you have information for me?"

"Right to the point then?" the contact asked, sounding a little surprised by the statement, "I have to admit I'm a little surprised."

Lelouch raised a confused eyebrow at the girl's statement, countering with, "My apologies did you expect a conversation filled with innuendo and double entendre?"

"No, of course not," the girl replied in a calmer tone than he had expected, which disappointed him slightly, but that disappointment completely disappeared when he noticed that her cheeks had gotten a little pinker, "I was just expecting you to be a little more… cautious around me."

"What gave you that impression?" Asked Lelouch, who was genuinely confused at how she had gotten that impression of him already, no matter how accurate it was.

"I asked Argo to tell me a little about you," the blonde-haired girl replied in a slightly embarrassed tone.

"Did she now?" Lelouch asked as his eyebrow twitched, his voice now dripping with irritation, "Looks like she and I are going to need to have a little chat about the meaning of the phrase 'double-standard'."

Argo's contact let out an awkward chuckle at his words.

"I'm sorry," the contact replied, "When I had asked, I had expected her to give you at least some information on me before coming here."

"No need to apologize," the former emperor waved off the apology, but was still obviously annoyed by the fact, "That girl has a strange penchant for making my life harder."

The girl had raised an eyebrow at that, before asking, "Really now? From the way she described you, it sounded like you two were really good friends."

"Friends?" Lelouch repeated uncertainly.

'_Are we friends?' _He asked himself curiously, '_We're on each others' friends list, but that was only so we could contact each other easier… Right? _

_But then again, we do spend a lot of our free time with each other and we do a lot of the things only friends seem to do, but is that enough to really make us friends if she's so willing to give my personal information away?' _

"Yeah, I guess you could call us friends," the raven-haired teen admitted after a few more seconds of contemplation, though he really didn't sound all too certain about the words that just came out of his mouth.

Argo's contact opened her mouth to respond, but was suddenly cut-off by an unknown man's voice, "Well, well, well what do we have here?"

The two turned their heads towards where the voice had come from and found a rather burly-looking man leaning on one of the trees surrounding the clearing.

Unfortunately, a good portion of the man's body was covered in steel-body armor, making it almost impossible to spot anything distinct about the man, though his choice of facial hair was rather unique since most people didn't walk around with handlebar mustache anymore.

"What are you two doing out in a place like this?" the man asked curiously as he stroked the tails of his mustache, "Don't you know its dangerous to go to such a place so close to nightfall?"

"I could ask you the same thing, couldn't I?" Lelouch countered as he began listening for anymore noise that could indicate another person's presence.

"I was just about to head back myself," the man admitted with a nonchalant shrug, "But I couldn't go back without warning you two first."

The former emperor narrowed his eyes at the man suspiciously, but decided to not call out the man for how disingenuine he had sounded just then.

If the man was trying to lure them into a trap, Lelouch definitely didn't want to give away the fact he was aware of it until they had sprung it. That way, he could reverse the situation right back onto them before they could even react.

"Well thank you for your concern," Argo's contact was the first to respond, "but believe me when I say that we're some of the last people you should worrying about."

The man raised an eyebrow at the statement, as he asked, "Really? Then I guess I have no reason to be here then."

Lelouch blinked dumbfoundedly as the man turned around and began walking back into the brush he had emerged from.

Barely even registering what the man had said when he turned around and waved to them, "I hope you two enjoy your evening."

When the man was gone from sight, Argo's contact let out a relieved sigh, turned to him, and asked, "Now that he's gone, shall we get back to business?"

"Y-yeah," the raven-haired teen replied, stuttering a little since he was still a little dumbfounded by the lack of blades at his throat, "Let's do that."

The blonde-haired girl giggled at that, "You know most people are like that when they're lured into a trap by a friendly stranger they met in the woods, not when it doesn't happen."

"Well I'm not most people," Lelouch grumbled under his breath before saying in a much louder voice, "So what information do you have for me?"

"Anything you want to know," the girl replied promptly.

"Good, well then…"

Lelouch then began asking her question after question; asking questions about LC's current base of operations, the amount of members they had, the name of their leader, etc.

And Argo's contact simply answered each and every one, all of which being far too detailed to have been simply fabricated on the spot.

But the flow of answers came to an abrupt end when he asked, "How exactly do you know all of this?"

The girl didn't just look adamant to answer the question, she looked absolutely horrified. Clearly, something about the subject made her uneasy, which was more than enough information for Lelouch to piece together his own answer in his head.

"You're a member of Laughing Coffin, aren't you?" He asked her, actively trying to keep the amount of suspicion in his voice to a minimum so he wouldn't spook her away just in case she had a tendency to be jumpy.

To which, she simply nodded her head and begrudgingly answered with, "Unfortunately."

Lelouch stood there and stared at the downcast girl with a certain curiosity that could only be found in opportunists like him. Instead of seeing this as some sort of damning evidence against her, he saw this rather surprising revelation as an opportunity to further his own plans.

The former emperor knew that it wasn't the most honorable way to view anybody, much less somebody who was willing to risk life and limb to give him _free _information, but doing the honorable thing has NEVER worked out well for him in the past and he greatly doubted that trend would end anytime soon.

With a moderately heavy heart, he asked the question that would act as the bait to lure her into his plan, "Tell me, what would you say if I told you I had a plan to bring down LC."

Argo's contact looked up at him with a disbelieving expression and retorted with, "I would call you crazy."

"But would you still be willing to hear me out?"

The girl nodded after a moment of silent contemplation.

"Good because the plan depends greatly on how you answer this next question," the raven-haired teen paused for dramatic effect and then continued with, "Why exactly did you join Laughing Coffin?"

She blinked at him and opened her mouth to answer, but no words came out of her mouth, forcing her into yet another stint of silent contemplation.

She stood there, simply thinking, for almost five minutes before finally coming up with her answer, "A friend of mine joined up with LC back when it first began and I joined so I could keep an eye on her.

Back then, the guild would only extort money from unsuspecting players and I didn't think much of it since no one was really getting hurt, but then…"

Lelouch opened his mouth to ask why she had stopped in the middle of her explanation, but immediately stopped when he set eyes upon her.

She was staring down at the ground, her whole body was shaking and it seemed like she would break into tears at any moment.

The violet-clad swordsman let out a soft sigh and walked up to the blonde-haired girl so that they were standing standing a few feet apart.

He gently placed a hand onto her shoulder and told her in the most comforting tone he could muster, "You don't have to say it if you don't want to."

She looked up at him and flashed him a small, grateful smile before quietly uttering the words, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Lelouch replied as he took his hand off the girl's shoulder, "There's no need to force yourself to say something so personal to me, I mean we did just meet a couple minutes ago."

Argo's contact blinked at him and let out a rather awkward sounding laugh at the statement.

Lelouch blinked at the girl in confusion, silently wondering why the girl had started laughing, but shrugged it off since it wasn't important enough to actually bring up.

"So do you have any more questions you wanted to ask me?" Argo's contact asked once she finally did stop laughing.

"Yes only one," began the former emperor, "Would you like to hear the plan I told you about earlier?"

She merely blinked at him and replied with, "But, I never finished answering your question."

"Yes you did, but in all actuality you answered the question perfectly," Lelouch replied, now using the same voice he had used whenever he spoke to the Black Knights as Zero back, "I asked you the question to gauge whether or not I could trust you with the information and you passed with flying colors."

The girl mouthed the word 'oh' and jokingly said, "I didn't know it was that easy to gain your trust."

"Just because I'm willing to tell you my plan doesn't mean that I trust you," the raven-haired teen retorted, "It's simply a risk that I'm taking to up my advantage in the future, nothing more and nothing less."

She once again mouthed the word 'oh' and mumbled something under her breath, just low enough for him to miss what she had said, but loud enough to know she had said anything at all. He guessed that it was most likely something that he would take offense to so he decided that it was best not to call her out on it.

"Nonetheless the offer still stands," Lelouch added as he cupped his cheek with gloved-hand, placing his other arm directly underneath the elbow of the preoccupied one, "So what's your answer?"

The girl opened her mouth but no response came out from it, making the answer rather obvious to him.

"So that's your answer?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, "I can't say that I'm surprised."

"W-what are you talking about? I didn't even say anything!" the contact retorted indignantly.

Lelouch simply let out an amused snort before explaining himself, "You didn't need to, your lack of answer told me everything I needed to know."

"Really? So, pray tell, what exactly does my silence tell you?" she asked, making it clear to him that she didn't like the fact that he could read her so easily.

"That you have no answer to give me," Lelouch answered, voice very matter-of-fact, "That you want more time to think about it because you know that the moment you hear the plan is the moment you invest yourself completely into it."

The girl's eyes simply widened in response, but unfortunately for her; he was the farthest thing from being done with explaining her own thought processes to her, "And you're reluctant to do so because both options will gain something you desire, but may make you give up something you hold dear."

"It's a rather common affliction with those in positions of power and importance," Lelouch prattled on absentmindedly, "Believe it or not, I too have been in situations where I had to choose between two things I cared about."

"Really?" the girl asked, her shock suddenly turning into...

Curiosity? Or was that skepticism? Maybe a mix of the two?

Lelouch quickly shook the thoughts from his mind, knowing that it really wasn't important at the moment.

What was important was the fact that she was taking the bait he had cast out towards her and if everything went to plan, he would have the one thing he had been looking for ever since he began this fight against Laughing Coffin: a mole.

"Unfortunately," Lelouch admitted, parroting the same tone she had used when she said the same exact words earlier.

Of course this had caused some less than pleasant memories to the front of his mind, but Lelouch knew that the emotions they would give him would help him as he proceeded with his plan.

"What did you end up choosing?" she asked, clearly wondering if she should be asking him this in the first place.

The raven-haired teen simply let out a drawn out sigh and replied with, "Truth be told, I never really had a choice in the matter."

"What do you mean?"

"In my experience, I found that when life gives you a difficult decision, it tends to make it for you," Lelouch explained with a tinge of bitterness to his voice, adding after a moment of silence, "If you like it or not."

"So what do you think I should do?" the contact asked, ditching her earlier uncertain tone with a much more frustrated one.

"Nothing," he replied in a deadpan manner.

"Eh?" the girl nearly gagged out in response.

Lelouch simply smiled at the rather comical response before explaining what he had said, "Like I said earlier, life will end up making the hard decisions for you, so I suggest that you don't choose and simply allow the pieces to fall where they may. Eventually, the answer will make itself clear to you."

The blonde-haired girl standing in front of him seemed to be confused by the statement at first, which was understandable considering what he had just said really didn't sound like very helpful advice, but she seemed to get a grasp on what he had meant after a few moments.

"I think I understand what you're trying to tell me," she replied, "Thanks… I guess."

**-Present Time-**

"What happened then?" Asuna asked from her seat on the couch.

"I asked her if she still wanted to hear my plan-" Lelouch began before he was cut off by the same girl who asked the question in the first place.

"Isn't that kind of defeating the purpose of telling her not to choose in the first place?"

The raven-haired teen absentmindedly glanced up towards the clock up on his HUD and let out a tired sigh upon seeing he had spent a whole half hour explaining this rather benign happening in his life. A part of him blamed the orange-haired girl sitting directly across from him for asking a question every couple of seconds, but then again, it's not like it mattered much in the long run.

"Not really, considering I only told her that to get her to make her choice faster," he replied in a tone that emphasized how tedious he felt the whole thing was.

"You know that literally makes no sense whatsoever, right?" Kazuto chimed in from his seat next to Asuna.

Lelouch let out an amused snort as he countered with, "I'm well aware of how nonsensical it sounds, but nonetheless it got me the results I was looking for."

"Does mean that she said yes?" asked a slightly more curious Asuna.

To both of his companions' surprise, the former emperor responded with, "Yes and no."

"She agreed on hearing out what I had planned, but before I began explaining it to her she asked me to give her time to decide whether or not she wanted to help me with it," he added before either of them could ask what he meant, "Seeing that she was already risking her own safety to give me the information on LC, I obliged and told her my plan."

"You just told her your _whole_ plan?" Kazuto asked, extremely surprised by the sound of it.

"Of course," the raven-haired teen replied nonchalantly, "Like I said, she was already risking a good deal by coming out to meet with me, I had to repay her somehow."

"And besides," the raven-haired teen began as a wryly smirk spread across his features, "It's not like the plan absolutely depended on the role I had planned for her, it would've just made what's to come easier on everyone."

"What exactly does that mean?" Asuna asked him curiously.

Lelouch let a soft chuckle before answering her question with a question of his own, "Tell me, what do you think our plan to deal with LC should be?"

At first, she seemed to be confused as to why he was asking her the question, but then seemed to realize that it was because she was the second-in-command of the most powerful guild in Aincrad, which gave her actual authority on the subject.

"Well the most obvious solution would be to try and negotiate with them for their surrender since it would require the least amount of bloodshed from both sides, but I highly doubt that LC would even consider surrendering to us even under the threat of death given their track record," Asuna began as she cupped her chin between her index finger and thumb in contemplation, "And then there's the option of staging a full-on assault on their base of operations, which would be the most direct and most effective way of ensuring their surrender, but could also end up with more than a few lives lost on both sides if LC somehow managed to catch wind of the attack."

"Are those really our only options?" Kazuto asked, sounding more than a little bummed by the revelation that the only two options they had could very well end in failure.

"Of course not, but to make such a move against LC we would need the cooperation of all of the major guilds to prevent any backlash from the public on any one guild if things are to go awry," Lelouch explained, "And trying to coordinate such a large group of people would be difficult since there's no direct way to relay messages to one another and the overall lack of experience working with one another is going to make things even harder, so it's best to keep any strategies as straight-forward as possible to prevent any communication mishaps."

"I guess that makes sense," the messy-haired teen replied as he leaned deeper into his seat on the couch, "But that doesn't make it any less depressing though."

Lelouch couldn't stop himself from smiling at his brother's words.

There was a certain naivete to it that reminded him of Suzaku. The one he knew before Euphemia's death.

Somebody who would always try to keep casualty numbers on both sides at zero if he could and would do everything in his power to make sure it would.

Someone who always put their morality and honor over logic.

Something Lelouch had always wanted to be… A good person.

But a good person wasn't going to bring down a group like LC.

No it would take somebody who wasn't afraid to forsake the lives of innocent people to get what they wanted.

Someone who put the goal over everything else.

Something Lelouch had always been… a bad person.

"So what exactly does this have to do with the plan you were about to tell me?" Asuna asked, pulling the raven-haired teen out of his thoughts and back into reality.

Still a little dazed by being so suddenly pulled out of his thoughts, it took him a moment to regain his train of thought.

"As Kazuto so eloquently put it, both of our options could end rather… badly to say the least," Lelouch said as he suddenly stood up from his seat and opened his inventory to fetch something that would help with the explanation.

Upon finding it, he selected it and placed it onto the standard wooden coffee table that had came with the apartment when he first rented it.

"A Record-Crystal?" his two companions asked in almost complete unison.

Lelouch glanced at the two and gave them a quick nod in response before activating said crystal.

An instant later, a holographic-blue screen emerged from the box, displaying a set of pictures that had been given to him by Lux a few days prior.

"So to minimize the chance of that happening, I took it upon myself to secure us an ace-in-the-hole," Lelouch explained dramatically as he turned the crystal so that the screen was facing his two companions, "Asuna and Kirito, I give to you something I like to call 'The Lancelot Initiative'..."

**-Lux POV-**

**(A Few Hours Later)**

"So what did you end up telling the boss?" she asked her friend, Rossa, the moment she felt like they were far enough away from their encampment that no one would overhear their conversation, unless they were followed of course, but she highly doubted that someone would be able to sneak up on them with her hearing skills.

"I told him that my cover had been blown and my target lead me into an ambush made of him and two of his friends; however he didn't know that I was only acting as bait for Ezra who quickly came in and hit them all with paralysis darts, which quickly turned the tide towards our favor.

Unfortunately we didn't know that his friends had hid antidote crystals under their cloak and they immediately got the beat on Ezra when he revealed himself, I escaped when they were all busy dealing with him, but he ended up getting teleported to somewhere, most likely Black Iron Palace due to his orange-player status," Rossa explained with a shrug, "You know a loose form of the truth."

"Good thinking," she complimented her friend, which elicited a slight blush to grow on Rossa's cheeks, "So how did Lerouge react when you told him what you were really doing?"

For a moment, Lux thought she saw a hint of annoyance in her friend's eyes the moment she asked her the question, but it came came and went so fast that it was hard to tell if it had happened at all.

"He seemed pleasantly surprised," the black-haired teen replied simply, "And by that I mean, he started grinning like a mad man."

Lux couldn't help but smile at the statement, "That sounds like something he would do."

"He also told me to tell you that he would contact you once he was done with the preparations and that we should lie low until he does," Rossa added last second.

"Good, because I don't know how much more of this I can take," Lux grumbled tiredly.

"Hey, consider yourself lucky that you don't have to deal with _that_ bastard on a daily basis," Rossa replied with a hint of disgust in her voice when she said this.

"Johnny still giving you trouble?" Lux asked curiously.

"Yeah, I'm sure he's still pissed about me turning him down a few months ago," her best friend letting out a sigh before continuing, "Seriously, you'd think he would have gotten over it by now…"

Lux let out a small giggle at her friend's relatively normal plight, "Maybe you should go out with him just to get him off your back, it's not like you're going to be seeing much of each other after everything goes down."

"Ha, like I would give the bag-wearing creep the satisfaction," the black-haired teen scoffed, "If he wants to try and make my life a living hell for it, I say bring it on because I take anything he can dish out and then some!"

She couldn't stop herself from laughing at the sheer determination in her friend's voice. It was like going out with Johnny one time would've been worse than giving your soul to the devil to her.

"You laugh now, but just wait until he starts trying to ask you out and then you'll know how I feel," Rossa grumbled under her breath softly, but not soft enough for Lux to miss it, which only made her laugh harder.

Her friend grumbled something else, but this time she said it at a volume that was inaudible to her, which was probably for the best in her opinion.

"So what happens to us once everything's finished?" Rossa asked suddenly, causing Lux to cease her laughing almost immediately, something that her friend seemed to pick up on which caused her to start rambling on in an attempt to get things back to the light-hearted conversation they were just having a few moments ago like she always did.

"I just noticed that you forgot to tell me when you were explaining it to me, is all. That or you did tell me and I just forgot, which is most likely the case since I do-"

Seeing that Rossa was going to ramble on until she stopped her, Lux did so with a simple, "I don't know."

Damn, that came out a lot weaker than she had hoped.

"What?"

"I don't know," she repeated, "The only thing Lerouge told me about what happened afterwards was that the people who join with us won't be imprisoned or killed like the others."

"That's good, I thought he was just going to use us up and leave us to die the moment we proved to unnecessary," Rossa stated, the relief in her voice being overpowered the awkward tone she had.

Why was that?

Maybe she was having second doubts, Lux wouldn't have blamed her if she did.

What they were planning would change things for them drastically. There was no telling what would happen.

Hell, they might even end up worse than they started off.

So that's why she had to tell her friend of the risk.

If things didn't go as planned and everything went to shit around them, she at least wanted Rossa as far away from it as possible.

But the moment she opened her mouth, something flashing in the corner of her HUD caught her attention.

It was a message alert and she automatically knew who the message was from.

**-Lelouch POV-**

**(A Week Later)**

"I still can't believe you managed to get leaders from all of the major clearing guilds to come for this," Kazuto stated as they walked towards the room he was holding the meeting.

"Truth be told, getting an audiences with them was surprisingly easy," Lelouch replied with a wry smirk on his lips, "All I had to do was do some favors for some of the higher ranked members of the guilds and I eventually managed to get in good enough graces with them to earn myself an audience with their leaders.

When I met with all of them individually I told them that I wanted to talk to the leaders of all the frontline guilds about the current status of the situation with LC and unsurprisingly they were more than a little hesitant to agree to come."

"So what'd you do to convince them otherwise?"

The smirk the raven-haired teen wore suddenly shifted into something akin to a small frown as he spoke, subconsciously knowing that his brother wouldn't like the answer he was about to give, "I told them what could happen if they were to not help with the effort and they eventually agreed."

"..."

The former emperor had expected a lot of different responses to come from his brother after that statement, but silence hadn't been one of them.

"Do you have a problem with the way I'm handling this situation?" he asked his brother in a tone that was similar to the one he would use during the Black Rebellion, "If you do, voice your opinion now when it can still change things."

"No," Kazuto answered in a tone that made it clear that there was no room to argue.

The raven-haired teen frowned at the sudden answer, but made no attempt at questioning it further.

As much as he wanted to know what his brother thought about the whole situation, Lelouch knew that he had much more important things to focus on at the moment.

"Hey Lelouch," his brother spoke as they neared the door leading to the hall he had set up for the meeting.

The raven-haired teen glanced over at his brother and asked, "What is it?"

The black-clad swordsman didn't respond at first, keeping silent for a few seconds before finally responding with, "Good luck in there."

He was half-tempted to respond with his usual answer of: "there's no such thing as luck", but decided against it when he saw that his brother hesitated before giving his response and simply nodded in response.

With that, his brother left him to stand in front of the door that would begin the downfall of Laughing Coffin.

But before entering, Lelouch opened his inventory and scrolled down until he finally found he was looking for.

He selected it, smiling darkly as the familiar-looking object materialized into his fully-gloved hand before hiding it under his cloak so that he could bring it out at the right time.

Placing his hand on the large wooden door in front of him, he gave a single firm push and smiled as it opened.

'_Now…' _he smiled, '_Let the games begin.' _

**-End-**

Well that's a wrap folks.

Sorry for such a short and boring chapter after such a long wait, but I simply felt like it was best to end it there so it wouldn't drag on for much longer as I felt like it was getting too long for what it actually was and that's a chapter to build up to next chapter.

Yes, this was a chapter to build up to the upcoming chapter.

And as to why it took so long to update, it's pretty much because of a combination of my own laziness and the fact I had other stories to work on. That and I pretty much went into this chapter not knowing what I was going to do.

I didn't know if I wanted to build-up to the fight with LC or simply have it this chapter, nor did I know what was going to happen in this chapter other than the explanation to what happened last chapter so that definitely didn't help.

But don't worry, I have a pretty good idea what I wanted to do next chapter and that includes the end of the "Lelouch v. Laughing Coffin" arc that I started two chapters ago.

It's going to be the exact opposite of this one. Long and action-packed.

So until next time… PEACE!


End file.
